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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29762367">The Ghost and Sir Rodney McKay</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sgamadison/pseuds/sgamadison'>sgamadison</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stargate Atlantis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Victorian, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 00:01:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>34,984</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29762367</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sgamadison/pseuds/sgamadison</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sir Rodney McKay doesn't tolerate fools lightly, but when his ex-fiancée goes missing and he sees what he thinks might be her ghost, perhaps allowing a pack of spiritualists descend on his estate isn't the worst idea Jeannie has ever had. Particularly when one of the guests is the enigmatic Major John Sheppard</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rodney McKay/John Sheppard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>66</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Romancing McShep 2021</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Ghost and Sir Rodney McKay</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>written for the 2021 romancingmcshep fest. The first scene of this story has been sitting on my hard drive for years, but I finally got around to dusting it off and completing it.</p>
<p>Much thanks to starry_diadem and pir8fancier for their beta reads, but I am an inveterate tweaker, so all mistakes are very much mine.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rodney McKay was so engrossed in his work that he didn’t even register Halling had entered the room until a protracted cough, followed by a loud and stagey, “Ahem, sir” finally broke through his concentration.</p>
<p>“Can’t you see I’m in the middle of some very delicate measurements?”</p>
<p>“I thought you would want to see the morning’s post, Sir Rodney.” Halling extended the tray he carried, which bore a stack of correspondence.</p>
<p>“Good Gad, all that in one post?” Rodney glanced quickly at the barometer and made careful notation of the pressure before setting down his pen to accept the stack of letters. He scooped them off the tray and sorted through them. Only one letter was expected: he’d been waiting for some time for a reply from Dr. Radek Zelenka regarding his proposed weather forecasting models. Zelenka had odd ideas—he’d been known to support a theory that Earth had been visited by ancient civilizations of tremendous advancement—but his calculations on the weather-forecasting model had been accurate, and Rodney’s model depended on gathering data from all over the world. If only the funny little Czech scientist would even consider using a telephone. Rodney had one installed earlier in the year, but Zelenka didn’t have access to one in his village. Rodney couldn’t resist tinkering with Edison’s design, and thought he’d improved upon the electromagnetic transmitter in a manner that would have both Edison and Bell green with envy for not having come up with it first. Had Zelenka access to a phone, he would have been impressed with the clarity of the call from Rodney’s estate.</p>
<p>At least Zelenka had written an actual letter for once instead of scratching microscopic messages on a tiny slip of paper attached to a pigeon. Rodney was looking forward to seeing what he had to say.</p>
<p>The rest of the morning mail looked suspiciously… social… in nature. He would have thought the missives would have been addressed to his sister, but they were not. Snatching up a letter opener, he slit the first letter and scanned the contents. He tossed down the remaining correspondence without reading it. Getting to his feet, he demanded of Halling, “Where is Mrs. Miller?”</p>
<p>“I believe she is in the nursery, sir.”</p>
<p>Rodney could have sent Halling to fetch her, but he doubted Jeannie would deign to come downstairs simply because he wished it. Rodney opened his pocket watch and checked the time. Glancing out the window at the sky, and then back at his elaborate set-up of equipment, he said, “Stay here. Watch the thermometer. If the temperature changes, I want you to record it there.” He pointed to the small notebook where he kept track of all his experiments.</p>
<p>“Don’t touch anything!” Rodney admonished as he left the room.</p>
<p>Rodney subscribed to the view within English families, established at the beginning of her reign by none other than the Queen and Prince Albert with their own large brood, that children should neither be seen nor heard.  Not having any children of his own, he had decreed the empty rooms on the third floor as the temporary nursery to house his niece and her nanny whenever his sister’s family was in residence. A fact he regretted now, having to climb the stairs in order to seek out his sister.</p>
<p>That Jeannie could be frequently found in the nursery was another example of how his sister differed from the other women of her class, but Rodney could hardly fault her for wanting to spend more time with her daughter than their own parents had spent with them.</p>
<p>He found her sitting in an undignified manner on the floor of the nursery, playing with her daughter. Or rather, she was playing with her daughter’s water colors, frowning as she painted abstract numerical computations on several sheets of paper strewn about her. Madison was having a tea party with her stuffed animals, completely ignoring her mother.</p>
<p>Rodney stood at the doorway, fists planted on his hips as he surveyed the room. “Jeannie, I must have a word with you.”</p>
<p>“Uncle Meredith!” Madison jumped up from her doll table, her face wreathed in smiles as she ran forward and hugged him. Being a small child, yet possessed of the McKay intellect and vocabulary, if Rodney did say so himself, she only came up to his thigh. “Come have tea,” she said, taking hold of his hand and dragging him bodily toward the miniature table.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, Mouse,” Rodney said, disengaging her sticky hand and wiping his palm with a handkerchief. “I need to speak with your mother at the moment.”</p>
<p>Madison tossed her curls in a manner so eerily similar to Jeannie that Rodney swore she must practice it in the mirror when no one was looking. “Mother is busy. She can’t hear you right now.”</p>
<p>Rodney glanced over at his sister where she knelt on the floor, her voluminous skirts puddled around her, sucking on the end of a paintbrush as she eyed her equations. Rodney recognized the look and was loathe to interrupt, knowing how much he hated being spoken to when he was in the same frame of mind, but damn it, he needed answers. “She’ll listen to me.”</p>
<p>Madison shrugged and went back to her tea party.</p>
<p>“Jeannie,” Rodney said again, stepping in between his sister and the sheet of paper she was studying. “Just now Halling delivered half a dozen acceptances to a house party for this weekend.”</p>
<p>“That’s nice.” Jeannie spoke distractedly, leaning around his legs to look at the paper again.</p>
<p>A moment of pity struck Rodney as he watched her. Her mind was almost as brilliant as his own—and she’d been of more help in his calculations that he’d care to admit—but by mere virtue of her gender, no one would ever know. She published her work under a male pseudonym, and it was only through Rodney’s connections that she’d been allowed to further her own education. However, compassion only went so far when he was mad at her.</p>
<p>Rodney snatched up the paper Jeannie had been studying, forcing her to look at him. “Very nice,” he snapped. “Only I didn’t invite anyone to a house party!”</p>
<p>“Well, you would if you’d given the matter sufficient thought.” Jeannie held out her hand and Rodney assisted her to her feet. She rearranged her skirts to her satisfaction before looking at him. “You can’t remain sequestered away in your house here, letting your neighbors whisper about you and Miss Keller behind their hands.”</p>
<p>“I would not be the first man whose fiancée left him.” Rodney glanced around the room. Noting the absence of the nanny, he leaned in to speak to Jeannie in a lower tone. “Where is Mrs. Biro?”</p>
<p>“I sent her downstairs for breakfast. Or was it lunch?” Jeannie looked around the room in some confusion, her brow furrowed. She shook off her own question. “Regardless, if it was only the fact that Jennifer Keller ended your engagement, you’d be a nine days wonder, nothing more. The real problem is that she’s missing.”</p>
<p>“Breakfast.” Rodney clued her in, before continuing his argument. “Be that as it may, the inquiry did not find me guilty of anything with regards to Miss Keller’s disappearance. They weren’t able to come to any conclusion at all, other than the collective opinion that she must have been delusional to agree to the engagement in the first place, and that any young woman of sound mind would have taken herself off without a word.” The corner of his mouth pulled down as he remembered the stated opinion at the inquiry. Belatedly, he checked to see if Madison was paying attention to their conversation. She was not.</p>
<p>Jeannie gave him a pitying look. “Having Miss Keller abandon you is one thing, but how is it that she hasn’t turned up anywhere else? That’s what has everyone’s tongues wagging, Meredith. Well, that and the rumors of a woman in white flitting about the countryside after dark.”</p>
<p>“Old wives’ tales.” Rodney huffed. “Nearly every community has their own version of the ‘woman in white’ story.” No one takes that rubbish seriously.”</p>
<p>“Until they run across the woman in white on their way home one night.” Jeannie lifted an eyebrow sharply.</p>
<p>“No doubt on their way back from the pub. I wouldn’t put it past Lucius Lavin to see pink elephants capering in the fields on his way home from an evening out.”</p>
<p>Jeannie shook her head sadly. “Not that I don’t agree with you on that count, but the last sighting was a fairly reliable source. I hardly think the Vicar would make up such a tale.”</p>
<p>Rodney plucked at his lower lip as he frowned. Woolsey was a dry stick of a man with little imagination and a fondness for ankle-biting terriers. Jeannie was right—he’d be far more likely to squelch such stories than to add to them. Rodney hadn’t heard of this latest sighting, either. No doubt the locals could speak of nothing else now.</p>
<p>“Anyway,” Jeannie continued briskly, “that’s what this house party is going to quell. If you invite the best of your circle for dinner and they agree to come, how can your neighbors continue to suspect you of some grievous crime?”</p>
<p>“Quite easily, I imagine. It’s a waste of time. They aren’t going to change their minds about me simply because I have a good cook. Not to mention, we’re in for a powerful snowstorm by the weekend. So, all those guests you invited will find themselves trapped here for a while.”</p>
<p>“Oh no.” Finally, his words sunk in. Sometimes he wondered if Jeannie ever listened to him at all. “Are you sure?”</p>
<p>“No, no, not at all. I’ve only been working on my weather-prediction models for the last three years now, using your mathematical formulas in combination with the data collected to develop the most accurate forecast system since Halling’s ‘rheumaticks’ in his knee. Yes, of course I’m certain. You’ll have to call the party off.”</p>
<p>“I don’t see why.” Now it was Jeannie’s turn to toss her curls. “We’ve plenty to eat, and by definition, people coming for a house party expect to stay the better part of a fortnight, if not longer. The only difference is that until it stops snowing, outside activities will be curtailed. I see no need to put anyone off. Besides, it’s too late to stop some of the guests. Surely they must already be on the road by now.”</p>
<p>“You have paint on your fingers,” Rodney pointed out, hoping to distract her enough to make his point. She snatched his handkerchief out of his pocket and began wiping her hand, transferring much of the paint to the linen. She returned it to him with a serene smile.</p>
<p>He took it with a curled lip. “Now see here. This notion of yours is ridiculous. It won’t change the way the neighborhood feels about my society, and I frankly don’t care what they think about me one way or another. You just want an excuse to throw a large party at my expense.”</p>
<p>“Don’t you care what has happened to Miss Keller?” Jeannie placed her fists firmly on her hips in a mirror image of how he’d stood on entering the room.</p>
<p>“I admit to a mild curiosity as to her whereabouts and have concerns for her safety, yes.”</p>
<p>The look in Jeannie’s eyes said she knew better. “Come now, Meredith. Put aside your hurt feelings at the thought that she has forsaken you and think rationally for a moment.”</p>
<p>“Stop calling me Meredith. You only do it to annoy me. And I am <em>always</em> rational,” he huffed again.</p>
<p>“Yes, yes.” Jeannie rolled her eyes in a very unladylike fashion. “Except when it comes to women. You never should have offered for her, you know.”</p>
<p>Rodney shot a sharp glance in Madison’s direction before leaning in to hiss at his sister. “And what am I supposed to do? As head of this household, I’m expected to marry and produce heirs. That’s the way things are <em>done</em>.”</p>
<p>Jeannie pulled back slightly from his vehemence. “I don’t see why. My future is secure. I am happily married, and I assure you, I <em>enjoy</em> producing heirs. Mr. Miller and I intend to produce more of them. Is it that important to you that a son of your loins inherits, or will any old nephew do?” She smiled, and for once, it didn’t seem as though she was mocking him.</p>
<p>Touched, and yet annoyed at the same time, he said, “You know I can’t have what I want.”</p>
<p>“If you’re discreet—”</p>
<p>“May we change the subject back to the matter at hand?”</p>
<p>“The house party or finding Miss Keller?” Jeannie lifted an eyebrow at him.</p>
<p>“Are you saying you think you can determine Miss Keller’s whereabouts?” Curiosity overcame him.</p>
<p>“Not me, but perhaps one of our guests can.”</p>
<p>“Our guests? What did you do, invite Inspector Lestrade to this gathering?” Rodney was rather proud of his retort, as it reflected on his knowledge of the current entertainment of the masses.</p>
<p>A faint blush dusted Jeannie’s cheeks. The McKays were always betrayed by their pale coloring when it came to their emotions. “Not exactly. But I did invite someone who is very good at finding things. Major John Sheppard.”</p>
<p>“Wait, what? That lunatic who came back from fighting in the Sudan convinced he can talk to the dead and find lost objects? Taken one too many blows to the head, I’d say.”</p>
<p>“Major Sheppard would tell you he can do no such thing. It’s Lady Elizabeth Weir who champions his abilities. If half of what she claims is true, then Major Sheppard’s gifts are truly remarkable. I thought you might find it refreshing to interact with someone who doesn’t believe in blowing his own horn. Unlike someone else I invited—Mr. Peter Kavanagh.”</p>
<p>“Kavanagh!” Rodney gaped at his sister. “Are you mad? That man’s a charlatan, plain and simple. He makes a living preying off the grief of others, tricking them into giving him money and property so that they can lap up more of his lies.”</p>
<p>Jeannie looked thoughtful. “Sometimes people need to hear lies. It helps them let go of their pain, to deal with their losses.”</p>
<p>“I’m sure that’s why he does it, then. Completely altruistic. Yes. I’ve heard that said about Mr. Kavanaugh many a time.” Rodney’s sarcasm should have been withering. To anyone outside his family, it would have been. “It’s a bunch of mumbo-jumbo claptrap and I won’t have it in this house. You must write to everyone this instant and tell them not to come. Especially Kavanagh and this Major Sheppard person.”</p>
<p>“I will not.” Jeannie lifted her chin pugnaciously.</p>
<p>“Very well, then I will do it myself, seeing as the letters were addressed to me anyway.” Rodney spun on his heel to leave the room, only Madison’s small voice stopped him in his tracks.</p>
<p>“Ronon and Teyla want Major Sheppard to come visit.”</p>
<p>“What’s that, Mouse?” Rodney wheeled to frown at his niece. She sat at her little table, pouring imaginary tea with aplomb for a rather battered-looking stuffed bear.</p>
<p>“Ronon and Teyla want Major Sheppard to come.” She indicated two empty chairs at the table.</p>
<p>“Ah, yes, well, that’s very nice, m’dear. Perhaps another time.”</p>
<p>Madison shook her head and scowled, looking very much the image of her mother when she was in high dungeon. “No, Major Sheppard must come. Teyla said so, and Teyla is always right.”</p>
<p>“Teyla being...?”</p>
<p>Madison narrowed her eyes and pursed her mouth. “Ronon and Teyla are my friends. Ronon is very brave and keeps the monsters away. Teyla is smart. I listen to her. You should too.” She handed Rodney a folded-up piece of paper.</p>
<p>He opened it to see a crude drawing of a monstrous figure: a tall, wraith-like being with green skin and long white hair. Its mouth opened in a silent hiss, and its clawed hands seemed to reach off the page toward Rodney.</p>
<p>“Good Gad,” Rodney exclaimed. “What in heaven’s name have you been feeding this child?” He rattled the paper in Jeannie’s direction.</p>
<p>Jeannie sighed and plucked the drawing from his hands. After perusing it silently for a moment, she tucked it away in the pocket of her dress. “I’m afraid Maddy started having nightmares shortly after we arrived. I suggested to her that there were angels looking out for her—”</p>
<p>“Really, Jeannie, you should know better.”</p>
<p>“I happen to be rather fond of sleeping. Or not sleeping with Mr. Miller, as the case may be.”</p>
<p>Rodney stuffed his fingers in his ears. “I did <em>not</em> need to know that.”</p>
<p>“Anyway, the very next day, Maddy had this Ronon and Teyla as imaginary friends. I confess, I’m rather amazed at the astuteness of Teyla. She has kept Maddy out of a great deal of trouble since we’ve been here.”</p>
<p>“I am not taking the advice of a child’s imaginary friend!”</p>
<p>“Miss Keller wants Major Sheppard to come as well.”</p>
<p>Rodney and Jeannie exchanged a surprised glance before Rodney crossed over to the table and knelt beside it. “Mouse, do you know what happened to Miss Keller?”</p>
<p>Madison shook her head and put her thumb in her mouth.</p>
<p>“Gracious,” Jeannie ejaculated, coming over to intervene. “Maddy hasn’t sucked her thumb for months now. Stop badgering her, Rodney.”</p>
<p>“Badgering?” Rodney was offended. “I merely asked the child a question.”</p>
<p>“One she doesn’t know the answer to.”</p>
<p>“Well, maybe I’m not asking the right question. Maddy, do you know where Miss Keller is?”</p>
<p>Madison removed her thumb long enough to say, “On the other side.”</p>
<p>Jeannie gasped. Rodney was taken aback as well. “The other side? Do you mean to tell me you’ve seen Miss Keller’s spirit?”</p>
<p>Madison just looked at him a long moment and then blinked her big blue eyes. “She’s not very happy.”</p>
<p>She went back to pouring her tea as though nothing had happened.</p>
<p>Jeannie gave Rodney a meaningful stare. He sighed. “I’ll inform the staff we’re having a house party.”</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Just his luck that the weather held off until nearly all of the guests had arrived.</p>
<p>“You’re sure it’s going to snow?” Jeannie lifted an eyebrow at the sky as Rodney checked his monitoring equipment in the garden. The weather had been brutally cold all week, but each day had dawned sunny and clear. Only now were gloomy clouds starting to form as dark, ominous smudges on the horizon.</p>
<p>“Of course, I’m sure. Doubt me all you like, but it will be snowing before the weekend is out. There’s a low-pressure system moving in. When it collides with the warm, moist air in place from the coast, it will generate a snowstorm of magnificent proportions. You’ll see.” Rodney rubbed his hands together in the brisk, cold air. Once again, he’d laid his gloves down somewhere. Hopefully the gardener would find them. Whatisname, Charles? Chuck? Something like that.</p>
<p>“You may be right.” Jeannie said thoughtfully. “Halling says his knee is beginning to ache.”</p>
<p>“Damn Halling and his predictive anatomy!” Rodney fumed, only to pull up short at Jeannie’s smirk. “You did that on purpose. You really know how to get my goat.”</p>
<p>“Of course, I do.” Jeannie smiled serenely and patted him on the cheek. “I’m your sister.”</p>
<p>“Hmph.” Rodney took a final glance around at his devices and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Well, you’ve already planned to fill my house with guests—<em>you</em> can entertain them. I’ve got work to do.” A thought occurred to him and he snapped his fingers rapidly, wincing slightly at how much that hurt when they were so cold. “There’s to be an additional guest. I invited my colleague, Zelenka.”</p>
<p>A frown marred Jeannie’s normally happy expression. “Why ever did you do that?”</p>
<p>Rodney shrugged. “The culmination of months of work and theorizing will be realized this weekend. I thought he should be here. Besides, a little intelligent conversation among all your spiritualists will be welcome.”</p>
<p>Actually, Zelenka had been invited months ago. The recent letter had confirmed he would be joining them before the weather turned. Rodney had just forgotten to tell Jeannie. Fortunately, given the presence of the house party, another guest shouldn’t be an issue.</p>
<p>“My numbers are going to be off. Aside from Lady Elizabeth and Madame Sora, most of the ladies in the party are attached. And there will be more men than women.”</p>
<p>“Do you think anyone will care about uneven numbers at the table? Madame Sora, indeed. Madame Fraud is more like it.” Rodney rolled his eyes and led the way along the path toward the front of the house, rubbing his hands together against the cold. “If you’ll recall, it wasn’t <em>my</em> bright idea to hold a house party in the middle of winter.” A gust of wind blew around the corner of the building, sending a shudder through him. “Are you so sure Lady Weir and the infamous Major Sheppard are still planning to come? If they don’t get here soon, they’ll be stranded on the road.”</p>
<p>The rest of the party had arrived the day before. Rodney had avoided the growing company of guests until the evening meal, even foregoing tea for once and demanding a tray in his labs. Finally, he’d been forced to dress for dinner and join the others. In addition to the spiritualists, Carson Beckett had traveled all the way from his medical practice in Edinburgh. While normally Rodney would be delighted to see his old friend, Carson’s wife had a discerning eye which frequently made Rodney uncomfortable. It was as though Laura Beckett, nee Cadman, could see right through him, and know his deepest secrets.</p>
<p>It was one thing to have Jeannie refer to Rodney’s somewhat <em>flexible</em> interests when it came to satisfying certain… urges. To have Laura do the same, with one eyebrow arched mockingly at him, wasn’t to be borne.</p>
<p>In addition to the guests staying at the house, Jeannie had invited several prominent local families to attend some sort of voodoo-séance on the morrow, but those members of Rodney’s society were going to come by carriage the night of the event. Thank goodness. Rodney loathed Lavin and his forever-giggling wife, and the less time he spent with the loud-mouthed man, the better. Naturally, Vicar Woolsey was invited, as Jeannie wanted to hear a first-hand account of his sighting of the White Lady. To Rodney’s additional disquiet, the Chief Constable, Colonel Caldwell, had indicated that he and his wife would be attending. Caldwell hadn’t come right out and said he believed Rodney was behind Jennifer Keller’s disappearance, but Caldwell <em>did</em> seem to be keeping an eye on him.</p>
<p>Where the hell <em>was</em> Jennifer? Rodney hated to admit it, but Jeannie was right. Calling off the wedding wasn’t entirely unexpected, but disappearing altogether was impossible to explain. Normally, he was confident Jennifer could take care of herself. She was both intelligent and sensible. Her knowledge of medicine and anatomy, while scandalous for a woman, was one of the things that had attracted him to her, soft science or not. At least she’d agreed with him that medicine as practiced in 1890 was more likely to get you killed than the disease your doctor was trying to cure, something he and Carson often went several rounds about. But the truth was her scathing assessment of his character had left him less than inclined to be concerned about her whereabouts until the whispers of foul play had begun. He’d just assumed she’d returned north to her family, and in any case, he hadn’t expected further correspondence from her. In his defense, he’d been busy setting up everything he’d need to collect data during the coming storm—as well as tinkering with a few ongoing projects—and he’d lost track of the days until the gossip mill had begun. Now he was worried, especially since the arrival of a letter from her father stating she had not returned to the family estate.</p>
<p>But Jeannie’s plan to exonerate him of rumors by calling in spiritualists was not only ridiculous, it had the potential to do more harm than good if someone took these lunatics at their word. Take Madame Sora. The young woman swathed herself in dark fabrics, with dozens of colored scarves and jet earrings that swung with every movement. She wore elbow length black gloves regardless of the time of day and spoke with a fake Romany accent that made Rodney grind his teeth whenever he heard it. At least her type of fraudulent behavior made her perfidy clear. An obvious con artist. Only the most gullible would possibly be taken in by her act.</p>
<p>Peter Kavanaugh was far worse. A smarmy man with a pencil thin moustache hovering over a perpetual smirk and his scant hair combed back and heavily pomaded, Kavanaugh radiated success—flashing his diamond stick pins and his emerald rings as he bent over the ladies’ hands and murmured things that made them smile. At dinner the night before, he’d regaled the other guests with stories of his past successes, earning him spiteful glances from Madame Sora, and open yawning from Rodney.</p>
<p>Unable to sit by and say nothing at some of Kavanaugh’s more outrageous claims, Rodney had delivered more than one stinging set-down, which hadn’t endeared him to the professional spiritualist. The man made him sick, preying on grieving widows and foolish gentlemen, telling them what they wanted to hear in exchange for money. A rotter through and through. He struck Rodney as someone who’d turn vindictive if thwarted. Belatedly, Rodney noted there was something in the malevolent glitter of Kavanaugh’s eyes that spoke of petty retribution, and Rodney found himself growing increasingly concerned about this so-called séance.</p>
<p>Rodney shivered on the walkway again, only this time it had nothing to do with the bitter temperatures.</p>
<p>The sound of a carriage entering the drive made him look up.</p>
<p>“Oh, good.” The relief in Jeannie’s voice took Rodney by surprise. She didn’t really think one of these fake mediums was going to clear his name, did she? “I believe Major Sheppard and Lady Elizabeth have arrived.”</p>
<p>Rodney wondered what approach this Sheppard fellow would take. Oozing smarmy charm like Kavanaugh or smoldering sensuality like Madame Sora? Either way, Rodney looked forward to exposing them all as charlatans. “It could be Zelipsky.”</p>
<p>Jeannie’s eyebrow had a decided arch to it, but she never took her eyes off the approaching carriage. “I thought you said his name was Zelenka.”</p>
<p>“Zelenka, Zelipsky. Something like that. What makes you think—oh.”</p>
<p>The team of horses pulled the carriage up to the front of the house, the better to discharge its passengers, but as it swept up the driveway, a man on horseback became visible riding alongside.</p>
<p>“If that’s Zelenka, I’ll eat my hat.” Jeannie’s frank admiration made Rodney glance sharply at her, but only for a moment.</p>
<p>The solitary rider presented a striking image, pulling Rodney’s gaze back toward him, though he scarcely knew why. Nothing about his attire was remarkable; in fact, the rider was simply dressed, wearing a modest top hat instead of some towering nonsense like the one Kavanaugh preferred. His brown greatcoat was open, revealing an ordinary black riding jacket and an uncomplicated cravat. Cream-colored breeches and tall boots muddied by the journey completed the picture. Interestingly, there was no riding crop in the gloved hand, but then again, the beast looked like a powder keg with a lit fuse burning toward it. This was no job-horse, needing firm encouragement to move. It was a valuable stallion, and no doubt it took an expert horseman to control him. No, there was nothing memorable about the rider’s attire.</p>
<p>But there was something commanding about the rider, just the same. He sat on his horse with an easy competence that Rodney envied.</p>
<p>The horse was something else altogether. A great black beast with a nasty eye. Rodney wasn’t one of these men who waxed poetical over horseflesh. In fact, if he had his way, horses would be replaced with a more efficient means of travel. Horses were a means to an end. He understood their uses, and the mechanics of riding them, but riding wasn’t something he did for pleasure. And never before had he grasped what it was that some people felt for the smelly, stupid, and frequently dangerous creatures.</p>
<p>But watching the casual command the rider held over what was obviously a hot and excitable animal, Rodney suddenly got it. For the first time, he could see the attraction.</p>
<p>“I think the view at the dinner table just became infinitely more appealing,” Jeannie murmured.</p>
<p>Rodney shot her a vicious look and was about to ask how she thought Kaleb would respond to her reaction, when a shot rang out far too close for comfort.</p>
<p>The black stallion spun on powerful hindquarters, and then, thwarted in its attempt to bolt, reared. The rider moved with the beast as one, in synchrony with its explosive action until he brought the horse back under control again. Halling, who had been in the act of directing the footmen to assist the passengers in disembarking from the carriage, froze in shock. A woman’s face, presumably that of Lady Elizabeth, appeared briefly at the window of the carriage, alarm stamped on her features.</p>
<p>And Kavanaugh came around the corner of the building, a smirk planted firmly on his face and a double-barreled fowling piece in his hand.</p>
<p>Rodney dashed toward the carriage, with Jeannie close behind, only for both of them to pull up short when the stallion half-reared again.</p>
<p>The blood thundered in Rodney’s ears and his words spilled out hot and furious. “What the devil do you think you’re playing at, Kavanaugh?”</p>
<p>“My apologies, my dear fellow.” Kavanaugh barely spared Rodney a glance. He approached horse and rider with a smile so oily, it made Rodney’s fingers curl into fists. “I’d been out shooting, and I saw a pigeon just now. I couldn’t resist.” He turned toward the rider. “Sorry, old chap. Didn’t mean to spook your horse. You must be Major Sheppard.”</p>
<p>Kavanaugh focused his gaze on Sheppard as though he were a hypnotist working a subject.</p>
<p>“A bit close to the house, don’t you think?” Sheppard’s drawl was so cuttingly dry, Rodney wanted to applaud his delivery. “Watch the horse,” Sheppard continued, as Kavanaugh advanced steadily. “He kicks.”</p>
<p>As if to prove Sheppard’s point, the stallion lifted a hind leg threateningly and pinned his ears. Kavanaugh came to a halt, his smile wavering slightly.</p>
<p>“A pigeon? You came damn close to shooting one of my guests, you idiot! Over a pigeon.” Rodney fumed as another thought occurred to him. “Did you hit it? Because if you have, you’ll have to explain your bloodthirsty desire to exterminate some poor hapless bird to Dr. Zelenka when he arrives. We’ve been communicating by homing pigeon and those are <em>his</em> birds.”</p>
<p>Kavanaugh looked briefly disconcerted. Sheppard seemed amused, judging by the slight smile lingering about lips too lush and full to belong to a man.</p>
<p>“Fortunately, I missed. Again, my sincerest apologies,” Kavanaugh said, not sounding in the least bit sincere or apologetic. He turned to Sheppard again. “Particularly to you, Major Sheppard. I understand some soldiers have difficulty, how do you say—<em>adjusting</em>—to life after the battlefield.”</p>
<p>The realization that this was no accident on Kavanaugh’s part—that it was a deliberate attempt to rattle the composure of a potential competitor, regardless if it had adverse effects on the Major’s mental health—took Rodney’s breath away with its sheer malice and audacity.</p>
<p>Had he not been watching Sheppard’s face, Rodney might have missed it. That flicker within the Major’s hawk-like eyes when he switched from affable gentleman to seasoned soldier for just a second. With no obvious signal from Sheppard, the horse suddenly leapt forward. Kavanaugh’s mouth fell open at the horse closing in on him and threw his arms up in front of his face in a gesture of self-protection. In one swift motion, Sheppard snatched the gun out of Kavanaugh’s hands and spun the horse away back to a safe distance.</p>
<p>“Perhaps, I should hang on to this. Seeing as you have so little experience handling weapons.” This time, the drawl felt like a sharpened knife and Sheppard’s half-smile was the twist as it sank home.</p>
<p>“Oh, good one.” Jeannie’s sotto voce comment echoed Rodney’s own thoughts. He particularly enjoyed the sour look on Kavanaugh’s face at having come off second best in the confrontation.</p>
<p>Major Sheppard merely contained his horse’s spinning whirl with his legs, holding the reins in one hand, with the fowling piece in the other. Damned if he wasn’t smiling, too.</p>
<p>“I think we’d better get inside.” Sheppard cast a knowing glance at the sky. “It’s going to snow.”</p>
<p>Rodney didn’t believe in love at first sight. But if he did, he’d have fallen hard for Major Sheppard on the spot.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>In order not to appear obviously smitten with the Major, Rodney fell back on his best method of self-defense: rudeness.</p>
<p>He’d bided his time, allowing the Major and Lady Elizabeth (along with her companion, a quiet little blonde named Miss Heightmeyer) to get settled before deciding to tell Sheppard what he thought of people who claimed to be able to speak with the dead. Jeannie had commandeered the women and taken them all to her sitting room where they could warm by the fire. Kaleb offered to be the sacrificial lamb by playing billiards with Kavanaugh and Carson, no doubt being mined by Kavanaugh for information he could then pretend he’d been told by the spirits. Unable to endure being polite to Kavanaugh, and not finding Sheppard in the usual places, such as the library or the drawing room, Rodney gave up seeking a private audience with the man and headed to his labs.</p>
<p>Only to find Sheppard standing in the middle of the room with a bemused expression on his face.</p>
<p>Up close, the man was somehow more mesmerizing than before. The shadow of stubble on his jaw bore witness to the fact he probably needed to shave twice a day when in company, and his eyes were like smoked brandy in the gray afternoon light. Tanned skin from a life lived in warmer climes caused a fan of lines to spread out from the corners of those eyes, and yet somehow, that made him more attractive than ever. It was a face that had seen and weathered much. The slight smirk suggested Sheppard found it better to act as though life were all too very amusing.</p>
<p>
  <em>Perhaps that was the only way to keep the darkness at bay.</em>
</p>
<p>The realization startled Rodney. Normally, he wasn’t the most perceptive of people when it came to that sort of thing, but watching Sheppard casually poke through his experiments, he suspected he had the right of it.</p>
<p>Now hatless, Rodney felt a spurt of envy at the sight of Sheppard’s hair in artful disarray. Rodney’s thinning hair lent itself best to the style known as the Caesar, but Sheppard’s thick locks spilled messily about in a perfect Brutus.</p>
<p>
  <em>Figures. Of course, he’d be the exact opposite.</em>
</p>
<p>“What are you doing here?” Rodney asked sharply.</p>
<p>“It’s a big house. I got turned around.” This time, the lazy drawl seemed to imply Rodney was getting his knickers in a twist over nothing. He wondered just how often Sheppard used his mannerisms to deflect and manipulate.</p>
<p>Probably a lot, given his current occupation. Oh goody. He was both charming and exuded raw sexuality, too. Kavanaugh and Mme Sora would have to watch out.</p>
<p>“These rooms are off-limits to guests.” Rodney’s lofty tone spoke volumes. Two could play the manipulation game.</p>
<p>“I can see why.” Sheppard let his hand trail along one of the long worktables Rodney had set up in the room, his fingers coming perilously close to the objects arranged there.</p>
<p>“Don’t touch anything.”</p>
<p>“Do you see me touching anything?” The tone was still playful, but Sheppard withdrew his hand to a safe distance. “What exactly is all this?”</p>
<p>Ah, the perfect opening.</p>
<p>“I’m a scientist. I invent things. I make a hypothesis and collect data that either supports or refutes my theory. So, you should know right up front, I don’t believe in ghosts. I don’t believe people have the ability to communicate with the dead, and I think spiritualism is worse than foolishness—it’s downright criminal.”</p>
<p>“You’ll get no argument from me.”</p>
<p>“Furthermore, I think— What did you say?”</p>
<p>One side of Sheppard’s mouth lifted in a particularly attractive smile, while an eyebrow arched at a nearly identical angle. “I said, I agree. Spiritualists are either delusional or frauds, take your pick.”</p>
<p>Rodney pounced. “So, which are you, then?”</p>
<p>Sheppard seemed taken aback. “Neither. I’m not a spiritualist.”</p>
<p>“Then what are you doing here? My sister, in her infinite wisdom, invited a pack of mediums to prove once and for all that I didn’t do away with my fiancée.”</p>
<p>“Then she thinks the lady in question is dead?”</p>
<p>Suddenly deflated, Rodney rested back against one of the worktables. “I don’t know. I think perhaps she does. Otherwise, someone would have heard from Miss Keller by now.”</p>
<p>“So, you think she’s dead, too.”</p>
<p>“I’d like to believe that she’s off enrolled in a medical college somewhere and will contact her family in due time after they get over the shock of her decision. Of course, they might be more forgiving if they believed some harm had befallen her first.” Rodney fingered his chin in thought. “That’s not a bad plan, actually. Let them get properly worried before springing on them the lesser evil of merely being forward in the eyes of society.” He shook his head. “I wish I could believe that’s what happened.”</p>
<p>Sheppard merely nodded, as though this wasn’t news to him. “You’re a scientist, first and foremost. So, evidence matters. Do you <em>have</em> any evidence she’s dead?”</p>
<p>“Well, no.” Which was reassuring, when it came down to it.</p>
<p>“No body? No scrap of cloth left behind on a thorn bush? No sodden slipper found at the edge of the marsh?”</p>
<p>Sheppard was making fun of him now, Rodney could tell. “No body, no scraps of fabric, and no muddy slippers. Few marshes, when it comes to that. Too far inland.” He folded his arms over his chest. “But no evidence she’s alive, either. No train ticket to London, no luggage delivered to a different address, and her family hasn’t heard from her in weeks. No one has.”</p>
<p>Sheppard fixed a narrow-eyed glance in Rodney’s direction before saying casually, “Once you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”</p>
<p>Rodney blinked. “Whoa. That’s good. That’s very good.” He pulled out one of his little notebooks and began scribbling the words down. “Do you mind if I use that?”</p>
<p>Sheppard shrugged. “Be my guest. Though fair warning, some writer chap I know seemed to like it too.”</p>
<p>Rodney tucked the notebook back in the pocket of his waistcoat. “There would seem to be only a few possibilities then. Either Miss Keller is dead, and we haven’t discovered the body yet, or she alive and unharmed, and presumably will turn up in the near future.”</p>
<p>“Or she is alive but unable—or unwilling—to let her friends know where she is.”</p>
<p>“That seems unlikely.” Rodney frowned sharply. He couldn’t think of a reason why Jennifer would be unable to communicate with her friends and family. As much as he liked the notion of setting her relatives up to accept unpalatable news, he didn’t really think Jennifer would keep them in worried suspense like that.</p>
<p>“But not impossible.” Damned if the man’s smile wasn’t utterly lethal. He had to be of Irish extraction. Sure as Rodney was standing there, Sheppard must have kissed the Blarney stone at one time. Rodney was so entranced by the sheer magnetism of Sheppard’s expression, he almost missed the rest of the Major’s speech. “Maybe she had a reason for disappearing for a convenient period of time. She wouldn’t be the first woman to find it necessary to visit distant relatives for the better part of a year or so.”</p>
<p>Rodney continued frowning as he tried to make out Sheppard’s meaning until suddenly the implication struck him. His eyebrows snapped up into his hairline and his face flamed with an influx of heat. “Oh, no. No. No. No. Not that. At least, not with <em>me</em>.”</p>
<p>The hawk in Sheppard’s eyes pinned Rodney in its sights for a moment. “You seem pretty certain.”</p>
<p>“Well, aside from casting aspersions on the lady’s honor, I just want to be perfectly clear we can rule out an unexpected…that is to say, a premature… oh, dash it all! Miss Keller is not in hiding because she is <em>enceinte</em>, or if she is, it’s not <em>my</em> child.”</p>
<p>“You sure about that?” Sheppard sent a flicking glance up and down the length of Rodney’s body, which somehow had the effect of stripping him naked. Normally, Rodney would find this sort of perusal insulting at best, but somehow Sheppard’s assessment of him engendered a dangerous sense of longing instead. Best nip <em>that</em> untidy emotion in the bud, and fast.</p>
<p>“Positive,” Rodney ground out, his face feeling like a boiled lobster.</p>
<p>“You wouldn’t be the first couple to jump the gun before the wedding night—”</p>
<p>Rodney ticked off his points with his fingers as he spoke. “First, I am a gentleman. Second, our engagement dissolved by mutual agreement. I hardly think Miss Keller would have neglected to tell me of such a major complication under those circumstances—”</p>
<p>“She could have been embarrassed, or worried you would have insisted on going through with the marriage—”</p>
<p>“And third,” Rodney said, speaking loudly over Sheppard, “I am a confirmed bachelor.”</p>
<p>Rodney hadn’t thought he could get any redder, but judging from the way his skin burned, he was wrong.</p>
<p>Sheppard blinked slowly at him. “A bachelor.”</p>
<p>“Confirmed,” Rodney said with heavy emphasis. Though why Rodney had admitted that to a perfect stranger, he had no idea. Surely it was better for Sheppard to believe he’d taken advantage of Jennifer than to confess to something that might lead to hard labor in prison.</p>
<p>“But then why did you--?”</p>
<p>Rodney rolled his eyes. “Entailed property. The need for heirs. The usual things.”</p>
<p>“But—”</p>
<p>“The decision to end the engagement was mostly hers. But in the end, I agreed.”</p>
<p>There was a long pause before Sheppard merely said, “Huh.”</p>
<p>“That’s it?” Rodney cut in sharply. “That’s all you have to say?</p>
<p>Sheppard lifted one shoulder elegantly and let it drop again. “Sure. Why not. Ends a potential line of inquiry, that’s all.”</p>
<p>“You mean to say you aren’t going to claim you can speak to Miss Keller’s ghost and tell us where her body is buried?</p>
<p>“That’s not what I do.”</p>
<p>“Well, what <em>do</em> you do, Major Sheppard? We seem to be full up with mediums here.”</p>
<p>“I find things.” Sheppard seemed to have lost interest in the conversation and turned his attention to Rodney’s worktables again. “What does all this stuff do?”</p>
<p>Rodney walked Sheppard through his projects. Unlike most of the visitors Rodney had guided through his lab, Sheppard seemed not only genuinely intrigued, but asked intelligent questions, too. He showed enough enthusiasm over the coffee press and the weather-prediction apparatus that Rodney got up the nerve to unveil his model horseless carriage. He flipped the canvas tarp covering it back with a flourish, waiting with bated breath as Sheppard slowly whistled.</p>
<p>“You really think this will replace horses one day?”</p>
<p>Was it Rodney’s imagination, or did he hear pity in Sheppard’s voice?</p>
<p>“I do. Well, not this exactly—this is just a scale model. The original is out in the stables. But I need to solve the problem of fuel first. Steam is all well and good, but you can hardly cart around an endless supply of coal or wood. Carl Benz has designed a model using an internal combustion motor fueled by gasoline, but I feel certain I can improve on his model.”</p>
<p>“A more efficient fuel source, perhaps?”</p>
<p>“A more efficient fuel source.” Rodney repeated the words slowly to himself as he thought of the odd crystals he’d discovered on the estate. “A different kind of fuel. Or even an electrical current.”</p>
<p>“Right. Powered by one of those primary cell batteries like that guy Volta made.” Sheppard nodded along, as though his contribution to the discussion was nothing out of the ordinary.</p>
<p>Rodney fixed his most steely-eyed stare on Sheppard. “And just what would you know of Volta’s work?”</p>
<p>“Hey.” Sheppard’s eyebrows lifted in mild offense until they disappeared under the tumbled locks of his hair. “I read. Every now and then.”</p>
<p>“Hmmpf.”</p>
<p>“What are these?” Sheppard deftly changed the subject by pausing in front of a series of artifacts Rodney had arranged on a side table. Dull pewter in color, and covered with indecipherable runes, the odd artifacts had both intrigued and frustrated Rodney for some time now.</p>
<p>“I’m not sure. I found them in a barrow on the estate. I thought they were Viking in origin at first, but closer examination proved that theory to be incorrect. I haven’t been able to identify the civilization that created them. I’m not convinced they’re real artifacts. For all that they were found with objects dating back thousands of years, they hardly show any wear at all.”</p>
<p>“What’s in the bag?” Sheppard indicated the small velvet pouch lying on the table.</p>
<p>Rodney undid the drawstring and poured out the contents with a frown. “I found these at the same site. I thought they were quartz at first, but they are much lighter, and the dimensions are too uniform for a raw mineral.” He held a clear crystal up to the light. “See? Whatever this is, this isn’t the crude form. Someone’s already cut it to this precise shape.”</p>
<p>Sheppard stared at the crystal for a long moment, and then turned back to the small collection on the table. He got the strong impression Sheppard was about to say something regarding the crystals but changed his mind. As Rodney watched, he reached out with a fingertip to stroke one silvery surface.</p>
<p>“What did I say about not touching anything?”</p>
<p>Rodney’s outrage was completely defeated by the wicked smile Sheppard tossed over his shoulder before he deliberately made contact. When he did so, the device began to glow. Sheppard pulled his hand back as though he’d been shocked.</p>
<p>Rodney leapt forward. “Do that again.”</p>
<p>Sheppard shot him a sideways glance. “I thought you said no touching.”</p>
<p>“That’s before you made a completely inert object light up. Touch it again, Major!”</p>
<p>Sheppard rested his fingertips on the artifact, which emitted a cold blue light.</p>
<p>“Remarkable,” Rodney uttered. “Here, let me.”</p>
<p>He snatched the device from beneath Sheppard’s fingers, and it went dark again. Wordlessly, he handed it back to Sheppard. The device lit up for him once more, like a puppy wriggling at its master’s touch.</p>
<p>Sheppard eyed it warily.</p>
<p>“Why you?” Rodney mused aloud. “Why does it light up for you and not me?”</p>
<p>“Maybe it likes me better.”</p>
<p>Rodney curled his lip at Sheppard. “I think not. No, there has to be something different about you—I know!” He snapped his fingers suddenly. “Are there any Irishmen in your family? You look like you might be Irish.”</p>
<p>This time the eyebrow quirked up a hint of placation for the crazy man—something Rodney was accustomed to getting from Jeannie, but not from a hot stranger.</p>
<p>“Maybe. On my father’s side.”</p>
<p>“That has to be it,” Rodney decided. “You’ve inherited the Irish coloring from him. It’s like eye color or any other family trait. That stuff Mendel was yammering on about with sweet peas and his so-called Laws of Inheritance.”</p>
<p>“What is?” For the first time since they started the conversation, Sheppard didn’t appear to be following him.</p>
<p>“This ability to make the devices light up. It’s got to be a family thing, right? What do you think it does?” Rodney couldn’t quite keep the jealousy out of his voice.</p>
<p>“You’re asking me?” Sheppard’s tone was sharply incredulous.</p>
<p>“You’re the one making it light up. You must have some idea what it does.”</p>
<p>Abruptly, Sheppard placed the object on the worktable, where it went dark. “I don’t know how I did that. I only know this happens to me now.”</p>
<p>Rodney’s curiosity pounced on the single word. “What do you mean <em>now</em>?”</p>
<p>Sheppard gave a long-suffering sigh. “I mean strange things happen to me now. Ever since I was in the Sudan.”</p>
<p>“Are you going to enlighten me over that cryptic statement, or are you saving that piece of entertainment for the dinner party this evening?” As a stinging delivery went, Rodney thought that one was particularly good.</p>
<p>Sheppard merely arched a questioning brow.</p>
<p>“You know, you know,” Rodney waved a hand irritably. “Tonight, at dinner, when you regale us with the mysterious circumstances behind the development of your ‘gift’ and the number of astonishing revelations your mystical powers grant you. Kavanaugh and Madame Sora have already had their turn. Is that why you arrived late? So as not to have to deal with the competition?”</p>
<p>“Madame Sora, you say?” Sheppard’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I’d count the silverware with that one in the house if I were you.”</p>
<p>Rodney sighed heavily. “Believe me, inviting everyone—yourself included—wasn’t my idea. And if you aren’t a medium or spiritualist, then why’d you come?”</p>
<p>The slightest frown wrinkled Sheppard’s brow before he smoothed it away and shrugged. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”</p>
<p>Rodney rolled his eyes. “Have it your way. But I am curious as to what your contribution to the weekend’s séance is going to be.”</p>
<p>By Gad, the man actually winced.</p>
<p>“I wish I could tell you,” he muttered.</p>
<p>“Peter Kavanaugh communicates with the spirits on different planes of existence, piercing the veil between their realm and ours,” Rodney spoke with dramatic effect, waving his hands about his head as though parting vapor. He lowered them to add with a smirk, “I’ve already discovered several magic mirrors among his belongings. No doubt he will attempt to project some phantasmagoria on the wall and claim he’s summoned a ghost from the beyond. I’m looking forward to exposing him as a fraud.”</p>
<p>His speech was meant to be a kind of warning to Sheppard, but instead, Rodney got an answering smirk in return.</p>
<p>“And Madame Sora?” Sheppard drawled.</p>
<p>Rodney pressed his palm dramatically to his chest. “Madame Sora claims to be able to channel the Goddess Hathor. Who, if you’re up on your Egyptian mythology, can cross the boundaries between worlds, helping the dead in their transition to the afterlife.”</p>
<p>His statement had a profound effect on Sheppard. The smile was wiped from his face, and he went very still. “Hathor is also the Eye of Ra and protects him from his enemies. Kind of a vengeful sort, our Hathor.” He spoke slowly, as though the information came to him from some great distance.</p>
<p>“Which might be a problem if Mme Sora could really channel a major deity, but since Hathor is mythological, that would be a ‘no.’”</p>
<p>The oddest expression crossed Sheppard’s face. His lips parted, as though he were about to speak, but then he shook his head slightly, as though admonishing himself to silence.</p>
<p>“What?” Rodney was incapable of imagining why anyone would withhold their opinion on a subject as long as it was an intelligent one, and if nothing else, this time with Sheppard had convinced him there was more to the man than a fashionable haircut.</p>
<p>Sheppard shook his head more firmly. “Nothing.”</p>
<p>“No, not nothing. There’s something on your mind. Speak, man.”</p>
<p>The narrow-eyed glance Sheppard shot him reminded Rodney of the moment in the driveway, where the metal beneath Sheppard’s rakish appearance had been evident. Then Sheppard shrugged in the lazy manner of a typical member of the gentry. “You wouldn’t believe me anyway.” His quirky grin made an appearance, scuttling the impression of a lethal military man. Changing the subject with the dexterity of a card sharp, Sheppard added, “Any more guests on the list?”</p>
<p>Rodney rattled off the remainder of the guest list, uncertain why he was being so obliging. Probably exactly how someone like Sheppard worked—extracting as much information as possible willingly given by the person he set out to fleece, so that no one would be the wiser in the end.</p>
<p>And yet, something about the man struck Rodney as being—if not exactly honest, certainly on the up and up. At least as far as his reason for being here went.</p>
<p>Nettled, Rodney picked up the small artifact and shoved it at Sheppard. “You made it light up before. I bet there’s more to it than that. A secret button that opens it. Something only you can activate.”</p>
<p>Suppressing a sigh, Sheppard took the artifact from Rodney. At once, it began glowing blue again, but even though Sheppard rotated it and pressed on various runes, he couldn’t find a way to open it. He started to hand it back, saying, “I don’t know what it does.”</p>
<p>“Well, <em>think</em>, man,” Rodney insisted.</p>
<p>Sheppard’s brows beetled together. “You want me to think about what it might do?”</p>
<p>Rodney opened his mouth to tell Sheppard not to be an idiot, but before he could do so, something clicked in the device, and an aperture opened. A beam of white light shot out and projected a tiny image of a woman wearing a white hooded gown a scant few inches from Sheppard’s hand. She looked back over her shoulder, as though she was worried she was being watched, and then straightened to speak.</p>
<p>Hands folded in front of her, her tone implied a serious charge, but her words were meaningless, spoken in a language Rodney didn’t understand. Sheppard and Rodney both watched in awe until she stopped. The image flickered, then restarted. It was clearly on some sort of loop.</p>
<p>“Did I do that?” Sheppard asked in bewilderment.</p>
<p>Rodney snatched the object out of his hand and the image disappeared. Try as he might, he couldn’t figure out where it originated. “Can you imagine the possibilities of such a device?” Rodney said, as he finally set the artifact back on the table. “This could revolutionize communications.”</p>
<p>
  <em>Eat your heart out, Alexander Graham Bell.</em>
</p>
<p>“Sure.” Sheppard’s drawl had an air of teasing to it. “Just think, some day people will be carrying around little devices like this and watching plays and stuff.”</p>
<p>Rodney just rolled his eyes. “I would appreciate it if you kept this under your hat, Major. I fully intend to file patents on my inventions in the future.”</p>
<p>There didn’t seem to be anything else to say after that. Rodney checked his pocket watch, and discovered it was nearly teatime. For once, time spent in conversation had flown by, and Rodney found himself suddenly loathe to end the private session with Sheppard. But end it, he must. Halling would be along any moment now to inquire as to whether he wished to join the others or not.</p>
<p>“Time for tea.” It was a statement, not a question. Was it his imagination, or did Sheppard look less than enthused at the prospect? Could he possibly be enjoying the conversation as much as Rodney was?</p>
<p>In another time and place, Rodney would have ordered a tray sent to his private study and invited Sheppard to join him there. Sheppard had scarcely reacted to Rodney’s emphasis on his status as a ‘confirmed bachelor’, and while Rodney dared not hope Sheppard might lean in the same direction, he supposed the Major’s time in the military had given him at least some familiarity with someone of Rodney’s bent. He didn’t seem inclined to use this information against Rodney, either, though Rodney would certainly have to watch his step during the house party. It was one thing to quell rumors regarding Jennifer’s disappearance—it was quite another to start new ones at his own expense.</p>
<p>Still, there’d been a hint of appreciation in the way Sheppard’s eye had lingered on Rodney’s folded arms, and if Rodney was not mistaken, Sheppard had been more than a little impressed with Rodney’s inventions. He replaced the watch in his waistcoat pocket with a little shake of his head. Regardless if Sheppard was tolerant of Rodney’s preferences, there was no way a man like him would share them. Inconceivable.</p>
<p>Zelenka’s pet theory that alien civilizations had visited the Earth previously was more likely.</p>
<p>But a man could dream.</p>
<p>A tap on the door interrupted. “That will be Halling announcing tea.” He didn’t wait for Sheppard’s acknowledgement—instead he raised his voice. “Enter.”</p>
<p>Halling stood at the open door. “Tea is ready in the drawing room, Sir Rodney. And Dr. Zelenka arrived a few minutes ago. I took the liberty of sending him to his rooms for a hot bath.” Halling paused for dramatic effect. “The snow has begun.”</p>
<p>“Excellent.” Rodney rubbed his hands together with satisfaction. “Bring a tray in here. Zelenka can join us after he warms up a bit.” He turned to Sheppard, aware he was grinning with delight. “I’ve got some measurements to take. Care to join me?”</p>
<p>Sheppard gave a little shrug. “Sure. Why not?”</p>
<p>This day was just getting better and better.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>****</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Where have you been all afternoon?” Jeanie scolded as he came down the stairs for dinner.</p>
<p>“Storm. Calculations. Data collection. Where else would I be?” Rodney frowned at his sister. Seriously, what did she expect?</p>
<p>Jeannie gave a long-suffering sigh. “We have <em>guests</em>, Rodney.”</p>
<p>“<em>You</em> have guests. I have work to do.” If he sounded lofty, all the better. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been warned.</p>
<p>Jeannie took his arm as he stepped off the stairs. “And yet you managed to sequester yourself away with Major Sheppard and Dr. Zelenka since teatime.”</p>
<p>“If you knew where I was and who I was with, then why did you ask me where I’d been?” They headed in the direction of the drawing room.</p>
<p>Jeannie sighed heavily. “It was a polite way of reminding you of your duties as host, and how you shouldn’t spend all your time with one or two guests. I should have known subtlety was wasted on you.”</p>
<p>Rodney opened his mouth to protest, but Jeannie went on. “I’ve had an interesting conversation with Lady Elizabeth regarding Major Sheppard. What has he told you about himself?”</p>
<p>Rodney frowned. “About himself? Very little. We spoke of my inventions.”</p>
<p>This time Jeannie rolled her eyes. “Of course, you did. I suppose it never occurred to you the Major is one of the most unmilitary-like men of our acquaintance?”</p>
<p>“I haven’t really given the matter much thought.” But even as he said it, he pictured the studied elegance of Sheppard’s movement, and the casual way he draped himself on furniture and doorframes alike. That was the mark of a man familiar and comfortable enough with wealth to disdain it. Odd that he hadn’t noticed it before. “He is an officer, after all. A gentleman. What difference do Sheppard’s origins make?”</p>
<p>“Nothing.” Jeannie shrugged. “I just found it strange that Lady Elizabeth didn’t seem to know much about his family, either.”</p>
<p>It was on the tip of his tongue to ask just what Lady Elizabeth’s association with Sheppard was, but Jeannie seemed to read his mind there, too. “Her patronage of him seems to be a purely professional one. It seems Major Sheppard helped locate a valuable necklace that had disappeared under suspicious circumstances. It’s Lady Elizabeth’s belief that Major Sheppard has a truly supernatural gift for such things.”</p>
<p>The noise Rodney made was decidedly rude, but as they’d arrived at the drawing room, the conversation was effectively at an end.</p>
<p>The guests looked almost posed in their positions in the parlor. Laura Beckett sat beside Lady Elizabeth and her companion (whose name had escaped Rodney), speaking with great animation. Madame Sora sat by herself in a wing-backed chair near the fire, her wine-colored dress spilling around her like a puddle of blood. Kaleb listened to Zelenka with great concentration, the little fuzzy-haired man having proved to have a decent grasp of the English language, despite his heavy Balkan accent. Carson remained a little to one side, frowning as he followed the conversation. Kavanaugh stood before the fire with his back to the room, his legs slightly wider than his shoulders, his stance almost belligerent in nature.</p>
<p>And Sheppard was by the window, one hand on the heavy curtain as he held it back to look out at the falling snow.</p>
<p>Rodney disengaged himself from Jeannie and made a beeline for Sheppard. “What’s it like out there?”</p>
<p>“See for yourself.” Sheppard pushed the curtain back farther, and Rodney leaned over his arm to peer outside.</p>
<p>It was impossible to see much from inside the well-lit room, but the swirl of snowflakes at the window’s edge was satisfying. The light spilling out of the window showed that the ground was already white.</p>
<p>Rodney rubbed his hands together. “Perfect. Now it remains to be seen if the amount of snow we’ve predicted will fall.”</p>
<p>Zelenka joined them at the window as Sheppard let the curtain slide back into place. “It is just as well that no one has anywhere to be tomorrow, yes?”</p>
<p>“I suspect this will force us to cancel the séance.” Rodney couldn’t help but smile his satisfaction at that.”</p>
<p>“Hardly.” Kavanaugh’s voice made them turn from the window. “Everyone who matters is here. We could hold it tonight, if we wanted.”</p>
<p>A worried frown furrowed Zelenka’s forehead, and he hastily removed his wire spectacles and cleaned the lenses with a handkerchief before putting the glasses back on to stare at Rodney. “Séance?”</p>
<p>“A bit of foolishness on the part of my sister. Pay it no mind.” Rodney waved a hand airily.</p>
<p>“It is not wise to mock that which you do not understand,” Madame Sora intoned from her chair, her light eyes glittering with a kind of repressed anger.</p>
<p>Rodney started to respond sharply, but he caught Sheppard’s raised eyebrow and found himself smiling at the amused smirk on Sheppard’s face. It was a shared moment of understanding—almost like they were old friends commiserating together—that was outside Rodney’s usual experience, and it pulled him up when he otherwise would have let Mme Sora know exactly what he thought of her odious fortune teller routine.</p>
<p>The sensation that Sheppard was on his side was so unusual it stopped Rodney’s tirade before he could launch it.</p>
<p>“Perhaps the snow will stop.” Kaleb smiled as though his shoes were too tight but he had to bear them anyway, and Rodney realized his brother-in-law was almost as reluctant to take part in the social gathering as he himself. Huh. Perhaps there was another ally there.</p>
<p>Mme Sora rose with the deliberation of a displeased queen. The jet beads on her dress tinkled slightly with her movement. “The stars are not yet in alignment. If we are to pierce the veil between this world and the next, we must wait until tomorrow evening. If, however, you wish to amuse yourselves by pretending to call spirits, I will not take part in it.”</p>
<p>“I do not <em>pretend</em>—” Kavanaugh broke in hotly, but the doors opened and Halling stood in the doorway.</p>
<p>“Dinner is served.”</p>
<p>“Thank God.” Sheppard’s amused voice was so close to his ear, it sent a little involuntary shiver down Rodney’s spine. “I could eat a horse.”</p>
<p>Rodney snorted his appreciation and led the way toward the dining room.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p>“If I <em>never</em> have to spend another evening such as this one, it will be too soon.” Rodney breathed a sigh of relief after the party broke up for the evening. When the guests finally retired, Jeannie had lingered behind Kaleb’s exit to speak with Halling about a household matter. Rodney ran into her in the hall after documenting the amount of snow that had fallen during the evening was exactly on par with his predictions thus far. He offered his arm as they climbed the stairs. “Interminable conversation, blatant attempts by your spiritualists to needle me, and then of all things, <em>charades</em>.” He spat the last word in the manner someone might have said <em>spiders</em>.</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” Jeannie said in a carefully causal tone. “I thought you were enjoying yourself. Perhaps a bit too much.”</p>
<p>Come to think of it, this had been one of the more pleasant social gatherings in his memory. His verbal missiles, usually left to detonate on their own, had been skillfully parried back and forth between himself and Sheppard, making them all the more satisfying when they finally hit home. But for Jeannie to remark upon it…</p>
<p>Rodney gave his bow tie a vicious tug, loosening its stranglehold on his neck with one swift movement. He eyed his sister suspiciously. “What do you mean by that?”</p>
<p>“I mean, you seemed to be particularly taken with Major Sheppard’s… um… conversation.”</p>
<p>Rodney felt heat rush into his face at her possible interpretation. “It’s not like that. Certainly, he’s an interesting person. Life experiences and all that. And surprisingly, given his roguish appearance is something of a cross between a pirate and a slightly reformed rake, he has more brains than one would expect. He actually had some excellent insights into my projects this afternoon. In fact—”</p>
<p>“In fact, it doesn’t hurt that he is exceedingly delightful to look at. Oh, don’t stand there opening and closing your mouth like that. You look like a trout.”</p>
<p>Rodney’s lips thinned into a tight line before he said stiffly. “I don’t know what you mean.”</p>
<p>Jeannie patted his arm gently. “I only meant that you seemed particularly taken with his company. And he with yours, though I can’t imagine why.” Her wide smile made a brief appearance before she frowned. “I think you should be careful, though. I don’t like the way Kavanaugh was watching you tonight.”</p>
<p>He waved her off. “The man’s an idiot. I’m not worried about him. Particularly when there is nothing to worry about, more’s the pity.”</p>
<p>“A man like Sheppard is out of your league.” Jeannie nodded wisely.</p>
<p>“I never said that! As a matter of fact—”</p>
<p>“Oh, please.” She held up her hand to stop him. “Anything you are imagining between the two of you is simply wishful thinking on your part.”</p>
<p>There was no point in arguing. She was probably right. At least, in terms of availability and all that.</p>
<p>“Anyway, I know you think Kavanaugh a fool—”</p>
<p>“Worse than a fool, a veritable bounder.”</p>
<p>“Stop interrupting me. There are worse things than being an idiot, you know. I didn’t like the way he was eyeing you this evening. More specifically, eyeing you and Major Sheppard.”</p>
<p>Rodney sucked in his breath sharply before wheeling on his sister, halting their progress up the stairs. “As I said before, there’s nothing between Sheppard and me, other than the interest I might display for new and intelligent company.”</p>
<p>“Oddly enough, you didn’t look at Mr. Zelenka with the same rapturous expression on your face.” Jeannie raised a single eyebrow in a manner that was decidedly sarcastic. “In fact, you were quite demeaning to him at times.” She indicated with her hand they should continue up the stairs.</p>
<p>Rodney preceded her, speaking over his shoulder as he mounted the final few steps to the second-floor landing. “Zelenka’s all right. Just a bit pedantic in his thinking. But might I remind you it was your bright idea to invite Kavanaugh in the first place? If there’s a problem, then it’s one of your making.”</p>
<p>It was Jeannie’s turn to flatten her lips. “I might have invited him, but you alienated him. Must you threaten to expose him as a charlatan at every turn?”</p>
<p>Rodney faced her as they reached the landing. “Yes. Because he is a fraud of the worst kind, and I intend that everyone should know it.”</p>
<p>Jeannie gave her head a little toss, her gold curls bouncing in the light from the lamp. “Exposure works both ways, dear brother. You should be mindful of that.”</p>
<p>She turned away from him toward her rooms, having clearly delivered an exit line. He was unable to think of a suitably scathing retort that was innocuous enough to be shouted after her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rodney looked longingly at the four-poster bed in his room, curtains enticingly drawn back. The maid had been in to turn down the counterpane, and he knew that the lump beneath the quilt signified the presence of a hot brick placed within to warm it. Replete with food and drink, and exhausted from the unaccustomed stimulation of company, the bed called to him like a Siren. There was no point in lying down, however. Due to the guests, Rodney was already retiring much later than usual, but in a few hours, it would be time to collect the next round of data on the storm—this time taking measurements outdoors as well. If he crawled into his warm bed now, he knew he’d abandon any further notion of leaving his room until morning. If then.</p>
<p>As it was, the fire in the hearth was merely a dull glow. More than three feet from the fire, the room was positively frigid. The boiler had been banked for the evening, and the house grew chill as a result. The wind could be heard outside the window. He cupped his hands against the heavy glass in an attempt to look out into the garden below, but he could scarcely see more than a short distance into the night. Snow still fell heavily, blanketing everything within sight.</p>
<p>The temptation to open a window and place a measuring stick in the snow on the sill was strong. He could then go to bed and wait for the worst of the storm to pass. According to his calculations, it should taper off by morning, in which case it would be much easier—and more pleasant—to take his measurements then. Only that wasn’t what a real scientist would do. Even if Zelenka hadn’t been staying as a guest for the specific purpose of this project, Rodney himself would know that the data wouldn’t be accurate with such gaps in the collection.</p>
<p>Damn it.</p>
<p>With a sigh, he grabbed the poker to stir the fire back into cheerful flames before settling down with a book. He soon found the trials and tribulations of Lionel Verney in Mary Shelley’s <em>The Last Man</em> less absorbing than the people ensconced in his home this very evening. Watching Sheppard fend off Kavanaugh’s attempts to dig out more information about him had been amusing, to say the least. Kavanaugh’s barbs had deflected off Sheppard’s bland countenance like arrows bouncing off a stone wall, but behind the cool façade Sheppard projected, Rodney could see a glitter of steel. As tempting as it had been to let the one-sided interrogation continue, Rodney had found himself intervening to change the conversation more than once.</p>
<p>Mme Sora had bothered him more. The more time he spent in her company, the more Rodney was convinced she might be better off in a lunatic asylum. At least with Kavanaugh, one had the impression the man knew he was playing a game. Mme Sora’s comments throughout the evening had grown increasingly autocratic, and it was apparent that on some level, she actually <em>believed</em> the drivel she espoused.</p>
<p>At least it would soon be over. The séance would be held on the morrow, which would put an end to the charade his guests were playing, one way or another. Thankfully, the snow would prevent Rodney’s neighbors from attending. He couldn’t shake the feeling something bad was going to happen.</p>
<p>Or perhaps it was just that he suspected Jeannie was right—Kavanaugh was a man who made a living winnowing out secrets from others and pretending he’d achieved that information through contact with the spirits—such a man wasn’t to be trusted. Even if Rodney hadn’t done anything for Kavanaugh to discover.</p>
<p>Kavanaugh hadn’t been content to let the exact nature of Sheppard’s ‘gift’ remain a secret, which made sense, when Rodney thought about it. The last thing someone like Kavanaugh wanted was to go blindly into a séance without knowing what kind of tricks Sheppard would bring to the table. It hadn’t been Sheppard who’d let his cards show, though. No, Lady Elizabeth, in her desire to champion Sheppard’s abilities, had given Kavanaugh what he wanted.</p>
<p>Showing some asperity at the constant needling Sheppard had received, Lady Elizabeth had finally spoken up. “Major Sheppard may not commune with the spirits, but he has done one better—he has been to the Afterlife and back.”</p>
<p>The statement had been greeted with surprise and curiosity by all. Sheppard’s demeanor during the subsequent explanation had been most interesting, however. He appeared almost pained by Lady Elizabeth’s revelations and had tried to dismiss her assertion with a shrug.</p>
<p>Kavanaugh wouldn’t let it go. Even Mme Sora had looked on with interested eyes.</p>
<p>Sheppard, disappointingly, had kept his story brief. He’d been in the Sudan in the aftermath of the ill-fated Hicks expedition, when his unit had been attacked. Though Sheppard made light of his experience, somehow Rodney could hear what he didn’t say about his forces being overrun by the Mahdi’s army. Had it not been for the development of a massive, unexpected sandstorm, the entire unit would have been wiped out to a man. Rodney could almost hear the shouting, the firing of weapons, smell the gunpowder and blood, feel the burning, blinding sting of sand being ground into the skin by the wind.</p>
<p>As it was, few survived the storm itself. Sheppard had been one of the few. Delirious with fever and dehydration when he was finally rescued, he’d spent weeks in the infirmary.</p>
<p>“That hardly sounds as though it was a life-after-death experience to me.” Kavanaugh had sneered.</p>
<p>Sheppard’s smile was more of a grimace, which somehow gave credence to his next words when Rodney, too, might have doubted.</p>
<p>“I saw things when I was unconscious. Things I can’t explain. A strange, beautiful city floating on an endless ocean. Machines that flew in the skies. A giant ring that lit up and spewed forth a column of water that carried people to distant places.” Sheppard had shrugged again. “If they were fever-dreams, they were like none I’d ever heard of before.”</p>
<p>Kavanaugh had visibly relaxed at Sheppard’s words, as though he no longer feared any competition from that quarter. Kaleb, Carson, and Zelenka had begun an animated discussion over the nature of a floating city and what kind of culture it might have. The ladies joined in on the lively speculation—all except Mme Sora, who’d sat watching Sheppard with narrowed eyes.</p>
<p>It had reminded Rodney of a fox watching a rabbit hole. Not that Sheppard reminded him of a rabbit. As a matter of fact, he suspected Sheppard would be the wily fox in most scenarios. There was just something in Mme Sora’s intent observation of him that made Rodney uneasy.</p>
<p>Sheppard could take care of himself. Of that much, Rodney was certain. Men like him had no real use for men like Rodney. Jeannie was right on that much, at least.</p>
<p>No matter. Science was the way of the future. Men of action might have been the stuff legends were made of in the past, but the future belonged to men of science. And Sir Rodney McKay would be named among those men who went down in history for their great inventions.</p>
<p>As a matter of fact, Sheppard’s wistful expression when he mentioned the flying machines he’d witnessed during his Afterlife experience, if indeed, that’s what it was, made Rodney determined to create a flying machine himself. After he eliminated the design flaws with his horseless carriage, that is.</p>
<p>Whatever Sheppard had experienced during the sandstorm, it was obvious it had a powerful effect on him. There was something in his eyes when he’d spoken of what he’d seen that seemed to get at the very heart of the man, beneath the walls and facades he presented to the world. Rodney could picture the two of them, side by side, riding the wave of water through the ring and coming out on the other side into a city of immense advancement. A man like Sheppard would need a genius such as Rodney to work out how to use the devices an advanced civilization might leave behind. And a brilliant scientist such as Rodney would need a foolhardy, adventuresome man such as Sheppard to test such devices.</p>
<p>There might be untold dangers as well, in which case both scientist and solider would bring their combined skills together to save the day. Every day would be like something out of <em>20,000 Leagues Under the Sea</em>.</p>
<p>All in all, it was a match made in heaven.</p>
<p>And if, at the end of a day’s adventuring, they found themselves back at the city, sitting in front of a roaring fire, sharing a drink and a cigar, well, that would be fine too. Sheppard struck Rodney as the kind of man who’d put his feet up and relax in the right company and with intelligent conversation, both of which Rodney would provide. Sheppard would even go so far as to loosen his tie and undo a couple of shirt buttons, revealing the clean lines of his throat. His cuffs would be rolled up as well, baring strong forearms dusted with the same dark hair that peeped enticingly out of his open collar. Long, lean legs propped up in front of him would tease Rodney’s eye into following their length to where Sheppard’s manhood made itself manifest. And Rodney would…</p>
<p>The book fell out of his lap, startling him into full wakefulness.</p>
<p>He was back in his own room, the light from the banked fire emanating in a gentle glow from the hearth. There was no adventure. No wondrous scientific discoveries to be made. No Sheppard in his bed.</p>
<p>With a sigh, Rodney extracted his watch from his waistcoat and opened it. It was almost time for him to make his data collections. Should he bother changing clothes? He’d sent his manservant to bed long ago—Perkins was used to Rodney keeping strange hours—for he’d seen no need to keep his valet up this evening. Truthfully, it was unnecessary to do anything more than exchange his evening shoes for a pair of boots and toss a heavy coat over his current clothing. It wasn’t as though he were going to be out in the storm for hours. A simple trip to the garden, a few measurements, and he’d be back indoors, stamping the snow off his feet and contemplating a nightcap.</p>
<p>Decision made, it took only a matter of moments to prepare. Perkins had learned the wisdom of leaving a wide variety of clothing available at any given time in Rodney’s dressing room, and the valet had known of his plans this evening. The greatcoat and boots were waiting for Rodney, as was a long, colorful scarf Jeannie had made for him. The flamboyant scarf was far too loud for a sensible Victorian gentleman to wear, something Jeannie had known from the outset, but it was warm, and if the combination of sage green, tan, mustard yellow, and rust colored stripes were a bit much for day wear, it was perfect for an excursion by night into a storm.</p>
<p>After lighting his handheld lantern, he put on his hat and gloves, collected his measuring stick, and left his rooms.</p>
<p>The lantern provided the only light as he moved quietly down the carpeted corridor toward the stairs. He toyed with the idea of hammering on Zelenka’s door and demanding that he join Rodney for the data collection, but they’d discussed it earlier and determined there was little benefit in Zelenka attending the process. If Rodney stopped to include him now, he’d miss the exact time period for taking his measurements. Not that being off by a half-hour or so would make much difference—it was the overall pattern they were examining—but it pleased Rodney to imagine Zelenka’s face at breakfast when he lorded over him the dedication that <em>real</em> scientists gave to their studies.</p>
<p>Zelenka’s reasoning for not participating in the late-night collection of information was that he was quite familiar with snow, thank you very much.</p>
<p>Though, truth be told, Rodney wasn’t looking forward to going outside. He reminded himself it wouldn’t take long, and he’d be back inside and ready for bed in no time.</p>
<p>He’d just reached the foot of the stairs when a whisper of sound caught his attention. Pausing with a frown, he held the lantern aloft, swinging it in a semi-circle in the direction of the noise. The warm bubble of light didn’t extend very far into the gloom of the large hallway, but he saw nothing.</p>
<p>Probably a mouse. He should consider getting a cat.</p>
<p>With a shrug, he moved toward the main door, only to jerk to a halt when he heard a familiar feminine voice behind him.</p>
<p>“I don’t belong here.”</p>
<p>He whipped around, the lantern swinging in his hand. “Jennifer?”</p>
<p>She stood in the hallway outlined in a faint blue light, wearing the same dress she’d been wearing when she’d left the house, though her hat and coat were nowhere to be seen. In fact, the dress looked a little bedraggled about the hem, as though it had been dragged through dirt and dust. Even her hair had a disheveled look about it, as though her maid had forgotten how to dress her curls properly. But that wasn’t what caught Rodney’s breath and held it in an icy fist. Behind Jennifer he could see a staircase leading up to great glass panels where beams of sunlight shone through.</p>
<p>Not in his house in his darkened hallway.</p>
<p>“I want to go home.” Jennifer rubbed her bare arms and glanced around in apprehension. She kept walking toward Rodney as though she didn’t see him at all.</p>
<p>Rodney thrust out his lantern in front of him. “Tell me where you are, and I’ll find you.”</p>
<p>She walked right through him. He gasped as the blue light passed over him, and when he spun to follow her direction, she was gone.</p>
<p>He stumbled back a step and nearly dropped the lantern. Fumbling for it before it crashed to the carpet and set the house on fire caused his heart to pound oddly in his chest.</p>
<p>“I didn’t see that.”</p>
<p>He straightened, made sure he had a firm grip on the lantern, and swung it about in a full circle. “See? Nothing there. My imagination. A combination of tough beef at dinner, not enough sleep, and fanciful talk of life on the other side of the Veil.” He nodded and would have snapped his fingers, only the gloves made it impossible. “Of course. Sheppard’s description of a magical city. That’s what led me to imagine I saw Miss Keller just now. Poppycock.”</p>
<p>He could almost hear Sheppard saying in that lazy drawl of his, “Sure, and you’d be Ebenezer Scrooge in this scenario, now would you?”</p>
<p>He’d take it up with Sheppard the next time he spoke the man. If he didn’t hurry, he’d miss the window of time to take the most accurate measurements. He moved down the stairs briskly. He was <em>not</em> running. That would be foolish.</p>
<p>Outside, the force of the storm crushed him as he stepped into it. Ice crystals battered his skin and crusted his eyelashes, and he pulled Jeannie’s outrageous scarf over the lower part of his face. Tucking his chin, he headed into the wind, the path in front of him lit a scant foot or so by the light of the lantern and filled with driving snow. Small needles of fear burned into him along with the ice. What if he missed the path and lost his way back to the house? A man could die out here on a night like this. No, he’d be fine. Halling had made sure to leave some of the gas lights lit in the lower part of the house where they could be seen from the garden. As long as he was quick about it, Rodney would have his measurements and be back in his rooms in no time. He’d treat himself to a snifter of brandy, that was for sure.</p>
<p>Forcing himself to hurry along in the direction of where his instruments had been set up, Rodney kept checking over his shoulder. No Jennifer in blue following him. And the cheerful, if frighteningly tiny, sparks of light could just be made out from the house behind him. Warm breath gusted out of him into the scarf as he came upon his apparatus and set down the lantern. It soon became apparent that he hadn’t taken into consideration the difficulty of making notes under the current weather conditions. Trusting the calculations to memory, instead of attempting to jot them down in his little notebook (a futile process at best), he collected the lantern and took the readings off the apparatus as quickly as possible. Muttering to himself, he shoved the notebook back in his pocket and began shuffling his way through the deepening snow back toward the house.</p>
<p>A strange metallic sound caught his ear and brought him to a halt. A clanging? A whirring with a popping sound of connection? The sound rode in on the wind and he had difficulty pinpointing it. But out across the open expanse of the garden, far across the fields and into the woods, he heard a <em>whoosh</em> like a large body of water cascading through a cataract. Impossible. And yet…?</p>
<p>He turned toward where he thought the sound had originated, only to see a bluish glow rise above the trees in the distance. What the hell?</p>
<p>The light seemed to shimmer above the treetops for several minutes before it abruptly snuffed out. Near blizzard conditions notwithstanding, they weren’t far enough north for the light to be part of the aurora borealis and the conditions weren’t right for it to be marsh gas, either. A figment of his imagination like the vision of Jennifer in his corridor? Exactly how much brandy had he had that evening?</p>
<p>He would put it out of his mind. It was past time he should go back to the house. But as he turned, he seemed to see another light, lower to the ground, flickering with the blowing snow. A smaller light, more like a lantern. He squinted into the driving ice crystals. The light blinked in and out, bobbing uncertainly in the general direction that the blue light had been.</p>
<p>Like a bolt of lightning, it struck him. Someone else was out there, just like him. Involuntarily, he took a step in the direction of the other light, only to pull himself up. What was he thinking? If he followed this will-o’-the-wisp into the storm, he would likely end up dead of hypothermia. They’d find his body frozen solid in a snowbank, icicles dripping off his nose. But logically, his estate was the only place the person with the lantern could have originated from. That meant the other explorer out there was from the house—a staff member, a guest, or family.</p>
<p><em>Madison</em>.</p>
<p>He didn’t know why he suspected it might be his niece traipsing about in a lethal snowstorm, but once the idea took hold, it sank teeth into his fears and refused to let go. He couldn’t risk it. He <em>had</em> to find out who was out there.</p>
<p>Thinking quickly, he assessed the situation. The lights from the house still shone clearly behind him. The gardens sloped away from him in a vast distance, bordered by a stone wall that would be hard to miss, even in the snow. A check of his pockets revealed a small mallet, a pair of shears, a couple of straight pins threaded through a piece of cloth, several of the odd crystals he’d shown Sheppard earlier, along with one of the smaller devices uncovered from the barrow, and a ball of twine. He fixed his gaze on the bobbing light now heading toward the forest and trudged toward it. If he braced the mallet in the wall and tied the string to it, he could use the lightweight tether as a guideline as far as it went. At least it would lessen his chance of getting totally lost.</p>
<p>The light continued to wink in and out of existence ahead of him.</p>
<p>By the time he’d reached the stone wall, he’d securely tied the twine to the mallet and was able to forcibly wedge it into a cleft, tugging on the twine several times to ensure its stability. In the brief moments he’d averted his eyes to complete his task, he’d lost sight of the light in front of him. He spent what seemed like hours scanning the woods ahead, shielding his eyes with a gloved hand as he peered into the spitting snow.</p>
<p>
  <em>There!</em>
</p>
<p>Spying the weaving flicker of the lamp among the trees ahead, he scrambled over the low wall and broke into a stumbling jog, allowing the twine to play out behind him as he ran. The light seemed weaker somehow, and a sense of urgency squeezed his heart with icy hands. No, it wasn’t his imagination. Either the light wasn’t moving as quickly as it had before, or he was catching up to it or both.</p>
<p>And then it went out.</p>
<p>No!</p>
<p>Fixing his gaze upon the last known sighting, he lurched along the path he’d chosen. Tree branches jumped up unseen in the storm and slapped him in the face. Roots grabbed at his feet and tried to trip him. Inside his heavy coat he broke a sweat, yet at the same time his feet were sodden and felt as though they might break off like tiny icicles. Without warning, he came to the end of the twine and nearly let it slip through gloved fingers too stiff to obey his commands. Shaking with exertion, he tied off the twine to the nearest tree and cut a swath out of the bark with the sharp edge of the shears so he could spot it with his lantern on his return. The white wound in the tree trunk didn’t show up as well as he’d hoped, but what choice did he have?</p>
<p>With grim determination, he ploughed on.</p>
<p>He didn’t see the body until he stumbled over it with a yelp of surprise, tumbling face first into the snow on the other side. The lantern flew out of his hand and went out. He came up with a splutter. Wiping the snow from his face with the side of his arm, he felt around for the form which had tripped him. Relief swept through him when he realized the body was too large for a child. Muscular, too. Rodney explored with only his hands to guide him, and frowning, took the fingertips of his glove in his teeth and tugged the leather off. The torso beneath his fingers was narrow and lean, and seemed to be dressed in the simplest of shirts, which was soaked to the ice-cold skin. Patting the body as he went, Rodney moved up the chest until he reached the face and sucked in his breath sharply when he reached the rasp of stubble along the chin. He withdrew his hands as though he’d been burned.</p>
<p>He located the dropped lantern. Fumbling for the matches in their waterproof container in his pocket, he wasted several on the striker until he got one to light. It went out almost immediately, but using his hands to shield the flame, he managed to get the lantern going again. Slamming the glass shut, he held it up over the form lying in the snow.</p>
<p>Major John Sheppard. Out cold. Literally.</p>
<p>He should go back to the house for help. No, he should make sure Sheppard wasn’t bleeding to death from some unseen injury. Though, being cold might slow down any internal bleeding. Wait, what was he thinking? Sheppard might succumb to hypothermia before Rodney got back with some men to bring him to the estate. He needed to strip the wet clothes off Sheppard, right? Oh, why didn’t he pay more attention to Jennifer when she droned on and on about the life sciences? Something crunched underfoot, and he discovered the lantern Sheppard must have been carrying, warped and melted as if by some energy source. It didn’t make sense, but then nothing about Sheppard being out here in the forest made sense.</p>
<p>Rodney fluttered around Sheppard’s body helplessly for more minutes than he cared to count. He was a scientist, damn it, not a doctor! At the same time, he was used to making critical decisions under pressure. He could <em>do</em> this.</p>
<p>First things first. He had to make sure Sheppard wasn’t going to die if he left him to go get help. Rodney set the lantern down so it cast light over Sheppard’s body, and knelt in the snow, wrinkling his nose at the icy wetness that seeped through his evening clothes. He ran his hands over Sheppard’s chest, marveling at the long length of him—seriously, the man seemed to be all torso—but was relieved not to discover any large weeping holes. Cupping the Major by the back of his head, Rodney lifted him slightly and ran his fingers through the thick hair. Nope, no wounds there either. And, no hair pomade as far as he could tell. How did the fellow get his hair to stand up so artfully anyway? When it wasn’t matted down with snow, that is.</p>
<p>Right. No clear indication what felled Sheppard, but at least it didn’t seem to involve blood or gore. He lowered Sheppard to the ground and tried shaking him lightly. When that failed to rouse the Major, he smacked him across the face. No response.</p>
<p>Aware of the passage of time, his own fingers getting colder by the minute, Rodney heaved Sheppard off the ground once more and rolled the man toward him to pull off his wet shirt. He’d have to leave the boots and form-fitting trousers—there was no way Rodney could remove those tight pants without assistance—but at least he could wrap Sheppard in his own outer coat. The weight of the garment would only slow him down and if he was moving, he shouldn’t get too cold.</p>
<p>A little voice in the back of his head suggested he should keep the coat for himself, pointing out the likelihood of his succumbing to the frigid temperatures as well, and then both of them would die, but Rodney shook that voice off. No. He would hurry. He <em>had</em> to hurry.</p>
<p>Holding the lantern aloft, he looked down at Sheppard swaddled to the best of Rodney’s ability in the greatcoat. Snow falling thick and fast, dusted Sheppard’s face, crusting his hair and eyelids. Worried, Rodney removed his scarf and tucked it around Sheppard as best he could to protect him without suffocating him. With one final, hesitant glance, Rodney pushed the lantern in front of him at arm’s length and squinted into the storm. The path he’d come by had to be around here somewhere.</p>
<p>By trial and error, he discovered he could see more clearly if he held the light to one side. Though the sky was leaden with snow, obscuring the moon and stars, there was an eerie whiteness to the forest that made everything brighter than Rodney would have thought possible at this hour. He half jogged toward the manor until he stumbled one too many times and came up gasping from the sting of cold snow on his skin. Forcing himself to slow down, he shuffled along, cursing the snow that only hours ago he’d greeted with delight.</p>
<p>He ran into the twine before he saw it. Practically sobbing with relief, Rodney grabbed hold of it, flinging snow from the slack line as he pulled it taut. He made better time as the twine slipped through gloved hands, and with the decreased possibility of getting lost in the storm, his confidence surged. He trotted along the now-familiar path, huffing with every needle-sharp inhale of frigid air.</p>
<p>Ahead, very far ahead, he could make out the twinkle of lights at the house. Twinkling because of the flurry of snow still coming down. Tiny pinpricks that seemed an impossible distance away. He staggered to a halt to wheeze with his hands on his soaking wet knees, the cold now mocking him for his lack of coat.</p>
<p>As he panted, he calculated the distance to the house, the time it would take to rouse staff, and the delay to getting a party back with enough men to carry Sheppard. It would take too long. It might already have been too long.</p>
<p>The dark shadow of the stables loomed off to the right, closer than the back wall to the estate gardens. A cart. He needed a cart of some sort. His fingers came up to snap, but his gloves were too wet and his fingers too numb to complete the action. He plowed his way the stables, torqueing his body from side to side with the effort of wading through the deepening snow. His brain fired on all cylinders as he hurried. The horseless carriage. He’d start it up and drive to where Sheppard lay. No sooner did the plan leap to mind, than he rejected it. No, even if the narrow tires didn’t bog down in the snow, it would take forever to build up enough steam to get the engine running. He toyed briefly with the notion of somehow plugging one of the crystals into carriage instead, but the time it would take to modify the power supply was time Sheppard simply didn’t have.</p>
<p>He burst into the stables, shouting for the head groom, even as he ran down the main aisle, shining the lantern in at the startled occupants within. He stopped when he found what he wanted: the huge cream-colored draft horse who tossed her head and rolled the whites of her eyes at him when he shone the light into her stall. He was already leading her into the aisle when the groom came stumbling down from his room.</p>
<p>“I need the sleigh. Now. It’s a matter of life and death.”</p>
<p>Fortunately, his groom wasn’t in the habit of questioning Rodney’s demands, even if they seemed utterly ludicrous. Together they uncovered the seldom-used sleigh and backed the excited mare between the shafts. Rodney’s frozen fingers were useless at fastening the leather bindings, so instead of attempting to help the groom, he grabbed a couple of heavy carriage blankets and climbed in to take a seat on the bench. As he collected the reins, the groom led the mare to the doors that had been thrown open to the swirling storm. Scattered hay across the aisle in front of the runners allowed the sleigh to slide forward, and when Rodney slapped the reins across the draft horse’s rump, she jumped and threw her weight into the yoke.</p>
<p>“Shall I come with you, Sir Rodney?” the groom shouted, jogging alongside as the sleigh began to edge toward the open yard.</p>
<p>“Yes! Wait. No!” Rodney thought better of how to utilize his resources. “Go to the house. Wake Halling and tell him to prepare more hot bricks and brandy in my rooms. Oh! And stoke the fires! We’re going to need hot water, and lots of it. Go now!” With another slap of the reins, the mare broke into a brisk trot, causing the merry tinkling of bells on the harness to sound. Once the runners hit the snow, the sleigh began to glide almost effortlessly, and Rodney had to haul on reins to turn the big mare in the direction he wanted to go.</p>
<p>Had he made the right choice in sending the groom to the estate? He thought so. The man had just woken from his bed and wasn’t dressed for the weather. Though neither was he, come to think of it, and now that Rodney was no longer moving, the cold lashed though his wet clothing, biting into his bones and making his teeth chatter. All he knew was that he couldn’t wait any longer to get back to Sheppard, and they would need all the warmth in the world when they got the Major back to the house.</p>
<p>Another place and time, and the sleigh ride would have been magical. Snow slanted through the night sky, falling thick and fast in great white feathery flakes that melted when he blinked his eyes. The bells jangled brightly to the rhythm of the trotting horse. Rodney opened one of the blankets and dragged it around his shoulders, marveling at how the horse-drawn sleigh made short work of the ground it had seemingly taken him hours to cover before. The woods loomed ahead, with the trees reaching across the path, their snow-laden branches forming a tunnel above them. They had to be getting close, right? He held up the lantern with one hand as he tugged back on the reins to slow the mare to a walk. It wouldn’t do to run over Sheppard.</p>
<p>If it hadn’t been for the horse, he might not have seen Sheppard. Fortunately, the mare shied at the snow-covered lump that was the Major, coming to an abrupt stop with a toss of her ice-crusted mane. Cursing, Rodney threw off the blanket covering him and half-fell as he clambered out. Why wouldn’t his brain work right? He should have brought the groom. He was never going to get Sheppard into the sleigh by himself.</p>
<p>He had no choice but to try anyway.</p>
<p>Tossing his coat aside, he clasped Sheppard in his arms and attempted to haul him to his feet. Sheppard’s damp body was as slick and cold as a corpse, a thought which struck Rodney as singularly unpleasant, and he sincerely hoped it wasn’t true.</p>
<p>“All I can say is you better not be dead, after all this effort I’ve gone through to rescue you.” Rodney huffed, and wheezed, and gasped as he struggled to drag Sheppard over to the sleigh. Sheppard oozed out of his grip, and Rodney adjusted it several times. “I could be home in bed at this very moment. Snuggled up nice and warm beneath twenty blankets, with a hot brick toasting my toes, and dreams of a stupendous breakfast awaiting me in the morning. But no, I’m here in the forest, freezing my ass off, trying to haul your ridiculous self back to the estate before you turn into a block of ice.”</p>
<p>Sheppard shifted slightly and murmured something through stiff lips.</p>
<p>Rodney hoisted him to his feet, relieved when it seemed as though Sheppard could support some of his own weight. He peered through the driving snow into Sheppard’s face. “What did you say?”</p>
<p>Sheppard spoke slowly, without any hint of a drawl, but Rodney could hear it in his mind just the same. “I said, nice ass indeed.”</p>
<p>Rodney must have developed frostbite because all of the sudden, his cheeks flamed with paradoxical heat. “Heroic smart aleck comments are a waste of breath, Major. Concentrate please on living.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I dunno.” Sheppard turned his icy nose into Rodney’s collar as he leaned heavily on him. “Makes living more fun.”</p>
<p>Rodney snorted as he heaved Sheppard over into the bed of the sleigh and clambered up behind him. Sheppard became unresponsive again, and Rodney left him curled on the floorboards, covered with several blankets, as he swung the mare around and whipped her up into a canter. Vapor plumed from her nostrils and wreathed her head as they charged through the night, her hoofbeats strangely muffled by deep snow. He by-passed the stables and drove the sleigh directly up the curving path to the front door. Light spilled out when the door was thrown open, illuminating the swirling snowflakes.</p>
<p>Help was at hand. Two young lads leapt to take hold of the mare as she blew and shook her head, guiding the sleigh to a sliding stop. Halling came down the front steps, along with several of the footmen, and he’d had the good sense to bring Beckett with him. Rodney almost wept with joy to be able to turn everything over to people who would know what to do.</p>
<p>“What happened?” Beckett asked, even as he <em>tsked</em> over Sheppard’s condition, and snapped orders for the footmen to carry him into the house.</p>
<p>“I don’t know.” Rodney’s own lips were numb now, and he forced the words through them with the deliberate articulation of someone who was squiffy with drink. “I found him unconsh… unconsh… out cold.”</p>
<p>Beckett left Rodney to Halling’s care to see to Sheppard, and Rodney was eminently grateful for the assistance up the stairs.</p>
<p>“Come with me, Sir Rodney.” Halling’s brisk efficiency was deeply reassuring. “I have a lukewarm bath and some brandy waiting for you.”</p>
<p>“No. The Major.” Rodney could barely speak for the chattering of his teeth. “The Major’s needs come first.”</p>
<p>Halling’s eyebrow lifted so high it nearly disappeared into his receding hairline. “I can’t say as I’ve ever heard you put someone else’s well-being over your own, sir. Be that as it may, rest assured, Major Sheppard is in the best of hands.”</p>
<p>Rodney pulled his arm out of Halling’s grip and turned his fiercest glare on him, the effort somewhat marred by the fact that doing so felt as though his face might crack. “I know how long it takes to heat water. Sheppard gets the bath first.”</p>
<p>“No, no, no.” Zelenka appeared on the other side of Rodney, his normally frazzled look accentuated by having been roused out of bed. He wore a heavy robe over a nightshirt, and his fuzzy hair stood out in a halo about his head, even as he peered owlishly through wire-rimmed spectacles. “I am an expert on hypothermia. It happens all too often at home. The Major must be warmed slowly. You, on the other hand, are not as frozen. A tepid bath, some hot tea with lots of honey, and to bed with you.”</p>
<p>“But—” Rodney glanced up the stairs, where the footmen carried Sheppard out of sight, Beckett close on their heels.</p>
<p>“The Major is a strong man. You found him quickly. He’ll be fine.”</p>
<p>Between Halling and Zelenka. Rodney found himself bundled off to the bathroom, where the porcelain tub, inside its handsome cabinet of gleaming mahogany, stood filled with water. Perkins, managing to look both worried and disgruntled at the same time, took over, shooing the other men out as he helped Rodney undress and into the tub.</p>
<p>As Rodney eased into the bath, the first contact of the water with his skin made him wince and curse.</p>
<p>“What are you trying to do, boil me alive? I’m not a lobster!” Rodney clawed at the sides and tried to get out.</p>
<p>“Sir Rodney! The water is but lukewarm, I assure you! It’s only because you’re so cold that you think it is so hot.” Perkins took a stoppered jar off the nearest shelf and began pouring the salt within into the tub.</p>
<p>Hissing the entire time, Rodney gradually lowered himself into the water, muttering, “Ow, ow, ow,” when he submerged his hands. His nose twitched as he sniffed the air around him. “What’s that you’re putting in the water? Why do I smell flowers?”</p>
<p>Perkins hastily checked the label. “Um, lavender? I seem to have grabbed Mrs. Miller’s bath salts by mistake.”</p>
<p>“And so I am destined to smell like a perfumer’s shop? Oh, stop fussing, Perkins, and fetch me a brandy.”</p>
<p>While he was gone, Rodney sank into the water up to his nose, violent shivers racking his body.</p>
<p>Perkins came back with a sour look on his face and tea tray. “That foreign gentleman says brandy is bad for someone as chilled as you are. Hot tea and honey is all he’ll allow. I can’t see as a drop of brandy can hurt you. Warms you up inside and out, I say. But he says otherwise.”</p>
<p>Rodney took the teacup with gratitude, noting how his fingers seemed to be working again. “Dr. Zelenka seems to know what he’s talking about, so we’ll follow his lead here. How is the Major?”</p>
<p>Perkins shrugged. “He was awake for a bit, but he’s sleeping again. No signs of frostbite, but he’s mighty cold. Can’t see why they don’t put him in a hot bath too, but the doctor won’t hear of it. Something about the shock of it stopping his heart. They’ve got him all bundled up in bed though.”</p>
<p>“Good.” Rodney closed his eyes and barely noticed when the cup nearly slipped from his fingers. Almost in a dream, he allowed himself to be removed from the tub, dried, and dressed in a robe and slippers before being assisted to his bedroom. The blazing heat from a roaring fire was a welcome relief when he was guided into the room. The army of people within, however, was not.</p>
<p>Okay, not an army, but still far too many people. Zelenka, Beckett, Halling, and even Jeannie, in her dressing gown for pity’s sake, stood grouped around his bed.</p>
<p>“What is the meaning of this? Jeannie, what are you doing here?” Rodney clutched the lapels of his silk robe tighter to his throat and glared about the room in general.</p>
<p>“Now, now, Meredith.” Jeannie was suitably placating. “Yours is the warmest room in the house, so Dr. Beckett brought the Major in here.” She indicated the bed, where a black tuft of hair proved visible beneath the mountain of covers.</p>
<p>Rodney shuffled his feet in his leather slippers. “Well, that’s all fine and dandy, but where I am to sleep?” He hated that his voice came out in whine, but damn it, he was exhausted, and he just wanted to go to bed.</p>
<p>Jeannie shot an amused glance at Beckett and Zelenka. “Why, with the Major, of course.”</p>
<p>“What?” Rodney gaped at his sister, trying very hard not to make noises like a boiler about to blow. He became aware that Perkins still had his arm and shrugged him off.</p>
<p>“It is the approved method for warming up someone who is so very cold, you see?” Zelenka pushed forward with an earnest expression. He held up his hands, fingers meshed together as he shook them slightly. “Skin to skin contact. Clausius and Thomson’s Laws of Thermodynamics. Heat transfers from a warmer body to a colder one in order to achieve equilibrium.”</p>
<p>“I’m familiar with the work,” Rodney snapped. “Though I have to say right now, it’s ridiculous to think that all of thermodynamic theory can be covered by those two laws. Mark my words—”</p>
<p>“Aye, Rodney,” Beckett broke in soothingly, his brogue sounding thicker than usual. “You can tell us all about it in the morning. In the meantime, we’ve gotten you sufficiently warmed up, so to speak, to do the Major some good. So off you go now, tuck into bed and get some rest.”</p>
<p>Rodney glanced over at the bed, where Sheppard’s hair poked out like some sort of wild animal in its burrow. Sharing a bed wasn’t such a bad idea, really. Once the fire died down in the hearth, the rooms became like iceboxes. A little human warmth under the covers seemed heavenly right now. He’d agree to anything as long as they let him go to bed. Only the irrepressible imp in his mind whispered how <em>convenient</em> it was to have Sheppard right where he wanted him.</p>
<p>Tearing his gaze away from Sheppard, who was so still Rodney feared he might not be alive after all, Rodney discovered Jeannie watching him, her eyes brimming with wicked delight.</p>
<p>“Goodnight, Jeannie,” Rodney said repressively, still clutching his lapels.</p>
<p>Jeannie rolled her eyes but gave his arm a little squeeze in passing as she left the room.</p>
<p>“You too. All of you.” Rodney lifted his chin with what was left of his dignity as Halling and Beckett trooped out.</p>
<p>Zelenka followed close on their heels, only to pause in front of Rodney. “Skin to skin. Very important.” He intertwined his fingers again.</p>
<p>“Out! You as well, Perkins,” Rodney added when the valet would have reached for him. “I can see myself to bed.”</p>
<p>Perkins trailed the others, closing the door as he left the room. Rodney found himself alone with Sheppard. He turned down the gas taps until only the light from the fire illuminated the room. Shedding the robe and slippers, he quickly tossed back the covers and dove beneath them, tugging them up over his shoulders as he burrowed down within. He immediately came up against the long, cold length of Sheppard’s body, and hissed his outrage as he recoiled.</p>
<p>“You’re like a block of ice, Major. I just got warm, too. And I’m supposed to wrap myself around you to share my body heat? This is ridiculous. I’ll just get cold again.”</p>
<p>Rodney started to throw the blanket back to escape when Sheppard made a slight sigh and pushed himself closer to Rodney. The action moved him under Rodney’s lifted arm. For what seemed like an eternity, Rodney lay frozen in place, holding his breath to see what Sheppard would do next. When the Major didn’t move further, Rodney slowly lowered his arm.</p>
<p>Sheppard took Rodney’s hand and pulled his arm more closely around his body.</p>
<p>It was strange how there seemed to be this groove along Sheppard’s side, in which Rodney’s arm fit perfectly. Sheppard snuggled up even further, and Rodney found himself draped over the man like another blanket. The shock of Sheppard’s icy extremities gave way to an appreciation of the heat radiating off the bricks lining the bed, and the way their bodies molded together like two pieces to a puzzle.</p>
<p>There was nothing sexual in the contact. Rodney couldn’t have mustered up an impure thought even if he tried.</p>
<p>But it was very nice, just the same.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Even with the heavy curtains drawn, dazzling white sunlight forced its way around the edges, gradually lightening the room until Rodney opened his eyes. He was warm, warmer than usual on awakening, and for a brief moment, he thought the chambermaid had ignored his strict warnings not to disturb him and had somehow crept into the room to light the fire. Even with the boiler and steam heat, it took a long while to bring the temperature of such a large and drafty house to a comfortable level. But his staff knew he kept irregular hours and it wasn’t worth their life to tempt his wrath by coming into his rooms before he was ready to rise.</p>
<p>The unaccustomed warmth made his limbs languid with comfort, and drowsily, it occurred to him he wouldn’t mind waking up in this manner every morning. It was only then that it dawned on him he wasn’t alone.</p>
<p>His body curved around another; his arms embraced a strong, lean form. His nose was pressed up against someone’s neck, and before he could recoil, his nostrils flared as he took in the scent of bay rum, and something indefinably yet unmistakably male. He became conscious of multiple things at once—how his left arm was all pins and needles from being squished up against someone else, how utterly delicious the person next to him smelled, and how his morning erection seemed determined, as if it had a mind of its own, to nestle itself in the groove of the ass of the person in his arms.</p>
<p>He froze with the shock of it all, scarcely daring to breathe for fear of breaking the spell, when the person next to him shifted slightly and… stretched.</p>
<p>The movement pushed that succulent little ass back against his rigid cock and wrenched a groan out of him. The person in his arms stiffened for an instant, and then slowly turned to face him.</p>
<p>Sheppard’s odd muddy green eyes blinked at him. The stark white light sneaking around the curtains highlighted the shadow of stubble on his face. Rodney saw him close-up, as though magnified, every line around his eyes and lips, and even the touch of silver in Sheppard’s sideburns. It should have stopped him cold being faced with the raw canvas of his desire, but instead, it took his breath away.</p>
<p>The man was simply beautiful. Even if that wasn’t a term normally assigned to men.</p>
<p>“Why do you smell like a garden?”</p>
<p>Rodney was going to kill Perkins at the first opportunity.</p>
<p>Fortunately, Sheppard didn’t wait for an answer.</p>
<p>“What happened?” Sheppard asked with a frown. “What am I doing here?”</p>
<p><em>Here</em>, of course, meaning in Rodney’s bed. Sans clothing.</p>
<p>Naturally, Rodney panicked.</p>
<p>“You don’t remember? I found you doing a damn fine imitation of an icicle out in the forest last night. Out cold, in more ways than one. I brought you back to the house, where the joint medical opinions of Beckett and Zelenka demanded that we share a bed—naked—to maximize the exchange of body heat.” Rodney wasn’t about to have Sheppard blow up in his face over the seemingly intimate situation they found themselves in. “What the dickens were you doing outside in the middle of a blizzard anyway? You weren’t even wearing a coat. Only an idiot would be outside in such conditions.”</p>
<p>“<em>You</em> were outside,” Sheppard pointed out with a lethal smile.</p>
<p>“For the purposes of science. I doubt you were there for the same. Unless you were following the blue light?”</p>
<p>“What blue light?” Sheppard half-closed his eyes, his expression suddenly guarded.</p>
<p>“Oh, for pity’s sake. Don’t pretend you don’t know. Blue light, mechanical noises, the sound of rushing water where no such thing exists? You were tracking it, same as me. Only something happened to you. What?”</p>
<p>Sheppard brought a hand up between them to rub his eyes. “I don’t know. I didn’t see it coming, whatever it was. When I saw the light, I knew I had to hurry, so I dashed out. One minute I was tracking the light, same as you. The next, it felt as though I’d been shocked with a powerful electrical jolt. The next thing I knew, you were trying to hoist me up.” His eyes narrowed consideringly. “You saved my life.”</p>
<p>An unaccustomed rush of emotion flared through Rodney. Pride, and joy, and something else, something more urgent and needy, balled together and thrummed down his body, demanding he close the infinitesimally small gap between Sheppard and himself. He had many more questions, but he could only focus on how Sheppard’s eyes had gone wide and dark, and his tongue peeped out to brush his lips, even as he reached to stroke Rodney’s arm.</p>
<p>A wicked smile curved Sheppard’s lips, and Rodney suspected he’d died and gone to Hell. “Let me make it up to you. I owe you one.”</p>
<p>When Sheppard ducked his head under the covers and slid his way down Rodney’s body until his lips closed over the head of his aching cock, all thought stuttered to a halt. When his brain came back online, Rodney had changed his mind. Not Hell by any means.</p>
<p>Heaven. He was in Heaven.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>They were quite late to breakfast.</p>
<p>Aside from Kavanaugh and Jeannie, the others had already eaten or had taken trays in their rooms. Rodney had bullied Perkins into shaving and dressing him at record speed and had arrived in the dining room to find Sheppard still at the sideboard, lifting a silver cloche to peer at the offerings beneath. Rodney bustled in, halted only briefly at the sight of Sheppard calmly filling his plate, and hurried to take his seat at the table, certain no one had noticed the pause.</p>
<p>Only Jeannie met his eye with an arch gleam in her own, and murmured, “You’re looking well, Meredith.”</p>
<p>“And what, pray tell, do you mean by that?” Rodney snapped, when Kavanaugh smiled into his teacup.</p>
<p>“I only meant, given your adventures of last evening.” She glanced rather pointedly at Kavanaugh, a look of warning in her lifted eyebrow. “We’ve ascertained that the Major is feeling fine this morning. But I suspect Mr. Kavanaugh here is wondering what we’re talking about.”</p>
<p>Rodney glanced over at Sheppard as he took his seat at the table and noted the cool lack of expression on his face. Since Rodney had seen him last, Sheppard had changed clothes and shaved as well, and Rodney found himself fascinated by the clean planes of his face. How would it compare to the bristly contact of this morning? Which would he like better? This warranted further study.</p>
<p>“Indeed.” Kavanaugh placed his cup in its saucer and leaned forward slightly. “I’m all ears.”</p>
<p>Kavanaugh’s attention drew heat to Rodney’s cheeks, and he wished, not for the first time, that his emotions didn’t ride so close the surface.</p>
<p>Halling appeared by his side to pour Rodney a cup of coffee. It steamed up from the cup, and Rodney cradled its warmth, glad to have something to occupy his hands. “I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal of things, Jeannie. The Major went out for a walk and got turned around in the storm. I happened to find him when I went out to make my measurements.”</p>
<p>“Good thing, too,” Sheppard drawled as he speared some eggs with his fork. “If I’d been out there any longer, no one would have found me until spring.”</p>
<p>Jeannie shuddered delicately. “What a horrid thought! I’m glad Meredith takes his scientific studies so seriously then.”</p>
<p>“As am I.” Sheppard flicked a glance in Rodney’s direction with a slight quirk of his lips.</p>
<p>Ah, then perhaps the standoffish expression had been due to Kavanaugh’s nosy interest, and not any desire to pretend Rodney no longer existed.</p>
<p>Rodney suddenly found himself with a wolfish appetite and went to the sideboard to load his own plate.</p>
<p>“I take it you made notation of the snowfall amounts, then? All according to your predictions with your weather calculations?” Kavanaugh timed his question for when Rodney had sat down again and just taken a bite of a buttered roll. The smile he gave when Rodney choked was pure evil.</p>
<p>“Well, that’s just it.” Rodney glared at Kavanaugh when he stopped coughing. “The conditions were too terrible to jot down anything at the time, and then I stumbled over Sheppard—literally—which put all thought of the project out of mind. All I could think of was getting him back to the house and properly warmed.”</p>
<p>“I’m sure.” Kavanaugh’s voice slyly implied something else, which was awkward seeing as there <em>had</em> been something else this morning.</p>
<p>Rodney felt his face flame. He must look like a kettle about to boil over.</p>
<p>“Fortunately, Dr. Beckett was on hand to offer his medical expertise, and of course Dr. Zelenka’s firsthand knowledge of such cases proved invaluable.” Jeannie allowed her eyes to widen in an approximation of feminine helplessness. “I merely directed the footmen to take the Major to your room because you already had a fire going. There was very little I could do.”</p>
<p>Sheppard lifted Jeannie’s hand and bestowed a kiss on the back of it. “And yet you took charge over everything like a battlefield general. My thanks, Mrs. Miller.”</p>
<p>Rodney was fairly certain Jeannie’s simper wasn’t entirely faked, and he had to quell a perfectly unreasonable sense of resentment toward his sister. She was married, for heaven’s sake. But he caught a gleam in Sheppard’s eye that seemed directed at him, even as he noted Kavanaugh seemed disappointed. It dawned on Rodney that Jeannie had made it quite clear that not only was there an excellent reason for Sheppard to have been in his rooms last night, but that there were several witnesses to this fact as well.</p>
<p>So he decided not to consign his only sister to the dungeons as soon as he built some.</p>
<p>A clatter in the hallway foretold the arrival of Madison, who flew into the room dragging a doll by one arm. She ran up to Rodney and tugged on his sleeve.</p>
<p>“What is it, Mouse?” He frowned. Hopefully, she wasn’t sticky with some unnamed substance at the moment.</p>
<p>She stretched up on her tiptoes and said in a loud whisper, “I need to say something, Uncle Meredith.”</p>
<p>“Madison, where is Mrs. Biro?” Jeannie wiped her mouth with her napkin, her own brow furrowing as she studied her offspring. “You know whispering isn’t polite.”</p>
<p>“What a charming child,” Kavanaugh said with patent insincerity as he patted his knee. “Wouldn’t you like to come over here and speak with your Uncle Peter?”</p>
<p>Madison fixed him with a cool stare. “No. Your hair is greasy and you smell bad. And you are <em>not</em> my uncle.”</p>
<p>“Madison!” Jeannie started to rise, but Rodney leapt to his feet and took his niece by the hand.</p>
<p>“Over here, Mouseling.” He led her a short distance from the table. Casting a glance back at Kavanaugh, who had turned an unattractive shade of puce, he caught Sheppard watching them with a maddeningly seductive half-smile curving his lips. Rodney bent down to Madison’s level and lowered his voice. “Have I told you you’re my favorite niece lately?”</p>
<p>“I’m your only niece. And you’re my only uncle. Only—” She broke off to twist one of her golden curls around her finger. “I like the Major. He’s nice.” She pulled Rodney closer and cupped her hand around his ear. “He could be my uncle, too, if he wanted.”</p>
<p>A demonic imp took possession of Rodney in that moment. “Why don’t you ask him about that later?”</p>
<p>Madison’s eyes crinkled at the corners as she took in the suggestion, but then her small face sobered. “But I have to tell you what Ronon said.”</p>
<p>Rodney felt the glee melt off his features. “Ronon, again, eh?”</p>
<p>Madison nodded vigorously. “He says to tell you Miss Keller really wants to come home. Now.”</p>
<p>Rodney jerked upright. He’d forgotten all about seeing Jennifer in the corridor last night. “Hellfire and damnation!”</p>
<p>“Meredith!” Jeannie admonished, tipping her head in Madison’ direction. “Language.”</p>
<p>Rodney glanced down to see his niece carefully mouthing the word “damnation” as though she were savoring a fine wine. No matter, what was done was done. “She reminded me of some important unfinished business. Thank you, Mouse.” Rodney gave her head a pat before turning toward the table. “Major. Could I have a word with you in private?”</p>
<p>Sheppard leaned back in his chair, sliding one arm to rest over the seatback. He looked like a man without a care in the world. “Must we? I’m still eating.”</p>
<p>“It’s about your abilities. Your gift.” When Sheppard’s eyebrow creased his hairline, Rodney hastily added, “Your gift for finding things. I need to speak with you about something urgent.”</p>
<p>Madison ran to her mother as Sheppard blotted his all-too-generous lips with a napkin and tossed it down beside his plate. “By all means. Lead the way, Sir Rodney.”</p>
<p>Once in the corridor, Sheppard fell into step beside him.</p>
<p>“About last night,” Rodney began, only to have Sheppard pull up abruptly, his handsome features contorted into a grimace.</p>
<p>“Are we seriously talking about that? If you weren’t okay with it, you should have said so. As far as I’m concerned, nothing happened if that’s how you want to play it.”</p>
<p>“Wait, what?” Rodney struggled to follow the leap in Sheppard’s conversation, only to have the light dawn slowly. When it did, he was properly aghast. “No. We’re not talking about <em>that</em>. For heaven’s sake, that wasn’t last night anyway. That was this morning. And if we were talking about it, which we’re not, I wouldn’t have any complaints anyway.”</p>
<p>The realization that Sheppard intended to pretend the whole thing between them never happened smacked Rodney square between the eyes, and anger flared like a struck match. “As I recall, you were the one doing the instigating anyway, so I don’t know what the hell you’re worried about.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” Sheppard’s voice was low and soft. His lips twisted in a wry smile as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Um, sorry then.”</p>
<p>“You should be,” Rodney snapped, and then said with less animosity, “As if anyone could have had any complaints about this morning. Seriously.”</p>
<p>Sheppard gave him a light punch to the shoulder. “Then what did you want to speak with me about?”</p>
<p>Now it was Rodney’s turn to shuffle uncomfortably. “I’m telling you this because I think you’re the only person who might believe me and not lock me up in an insane asylum. I saw Miss Keller last night. I was heading outside to take my measurements, and there she was, walking down the hallway toward me. But it was like she was a ghost. She was all wispy.” Rodney demonstrated with his hands. “And it was as if she were talking to herself. I could hear her, but she couldn’t hear or see me. Oh!” He snapped his fingers. “She was wearing the same clothes she had on when she left the estate, only it looked as though she’d been wearing them for days. Her hat and gloves were gone, and her hair was coming down. She walked right through me, too.”</p>
<p>Sheppard’s eyebrow rose again. “Exactly how much brandy did you have before going out into the storm?”</p>
<p>“I wasn’t squiffy, if that’s what you’re getting at.” Rodney rolled his eyes. “I would have thought you, at the very least, with your visions in the desert, would have been a little sympathetic here.”</p>
<p>“You’d been in your rooms, right?” Sheppard clearly was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. “You’d had a little brandy. Been reading. Maybe even dozed off. Who’s to say you weren’t still half-asleep when you saw what you thought was Miss Keller.”</p>
<p>His assessment was so close to Rodney’s own the night before, that his shoulders slumped a little. “It was so vivid, though. She was scared, and she said she wanted to go home. And then Madison reminded me this morning that her imaginary friends, Ronon and Teyla say Miss Keller wants to come home as well. And even though I know they aren’t angels, as Jeannie led Madison to believe, it occurred to me perhaps Madison saw something as well. Actual people, I mean.”</p>
<p>Something in Sheppard alerted, and in the blink of an eye, he shifted from a man of leisure into a soldier. Same clothing. Same rakish good looks. But one second, he’d been a gentleman, and the next he became a warrior. “Ronon and Teyla are kind of odd names for a kid to come up with on her own.”</p>
<p>“I know, right?” Rodney remembered another detail and snapped his fingers again. “Oh, and when I saw Jennifer, there was a big staircase behind her with a stained-glass window at the top of it. It…” Rodney struggled to find the right words to describe what he’d seen. “It was like a cathedral, only full of light.”</p>
<p>Sheppard hadn’t been moving before, but now he went as still as a marble statue. Something flared in those hawklike eyes, and then his lips parted. “Show me where you saw Miss Keller.”</p>
<p>They took the stairs two at a time. Rodney led the way toward his bedroom, turning with a frown as he neared a small end table filled with knickknacks. The scene was so… normal. Oil paintings of previous McKays lined the hallway. Snow-white light shone in from the window at the end of the hallway, illuminating the passageway with its dark mahogany paneling. The scent of beeswax and lemon was strong—the maids had already been cleaning this morning. He looked up and down the hallway and pointed toward the window. “She came from that direction, and as I said before, passed right through me about here. I remember because I was near this table.”</p>
<p>“No secret passages? Servants’ staircases or anything like that?” Sheppard ran his fingers along the molding, testing for any hidden springs.</p>
<p>“No. And none of the bedroom doors opened, either, if that’s what you’re thinking.”</p>
<p>“What I’m thinking is you have a house full of mediums here skilled in making people see ghosts and spirits.” Sheppard sounded as dry as the desert he’d fought in.</p>
<p>Rodney slapped his forehead. “I never thought of that. I’m an idiot! But…” He considered a moment further. “How could anyone project an image of Miss Keller that was so like her? That moved the way a lady would? There’s this fellow named Muybridge who’s been doing some work with serial photography that can simulate the movement of a running horse, but this was completely different. It looked like her. It acted like her. It <em>sounded</em> like her.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know. Maybe Kavanaugh has some tricks up his sleeve. Or he’s working with Madame Sora.”</p>
<p>“That seems unlikely. Mme Sora doesn’t seem like the collaborating type.”</p>
<p>They searched fruitlessly for any signs of projection equipment or wiring but found nothing. Not even a hint that something might have been in place but removed. Sheppard shoved his hands in his pockets as he stood in the hallway, lost in thought. The action pulled his clothing taut against his ass, and Rodney had a moment where he contemplated what a fine figure of a man the Major presented.</p>
<p>“Okay, we can’t prove trickery at work here. You don’t believe what you saw was a ghost.”</p>
<p>“Even if I believed in ghosts, which I don’t, Miss Keller certainly didn’t think she was dead.”</p>
<p>“Do ghosts know if they’re dead or not?” Sheppard shrugged off the question, as it was obviously rhetorical. “That leads us back to supposition about ruling out the impossible.”</p>
<p>“And the improbable conclusion?”</p>
<p>“That Ronon and Teyla are real people and they know where Miss Keller is. Did it occur to you that what you saw might have been a true-to-life version of the projections we witnessed in your laboratory yesterday afternoon?”</p>
<p>They set off in search of Madison.</p>
<p>Tracking down Jeannie, they discovered that Madison had been sent back to the nursery, so Rodney and Sheppard traipsed up the back stairs and found Madison in her schoolroom, at her lessons. Mrs. Biro wasn’t inclined to release Madison from her studies, but Rodney scowled and Sheppard smiled, and Mrs. Biro relented.</p>
<p>Madison flew to Rodney and clung to his legs like a barnacle. “Uncle Meredith! Have you come to take me outside to play in the snow?”</p>
<p>The last thing Rodney wanted to do was get cold and wet again. He grimaced at the thought. “Not right now, Mouse. Perhaps later this afternoon. I need to ask you some questions first.”</p>
<p>Madison grew solemn all the sudden and began sucking on her thumb.</p>
<p>“Why are you doing that?” Rodney complained. “Your mother will murder me if she catches you sucking your thumb again.” He turned to Sheppard. “Am I that scary? I’m not badgering her, I swear!”</p>
<p>Sheppard merely flashed him a smile and sank into a squat at Madison’s level, hands on his knees. “We just wanted to talk to you about Ronon and Teyla, sweetie.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” Madison pulled her thumb out of her mouth. “They’re my friends. They keep the monsters away.”</p>
<p>Rodney opened his mouth to speak but snapped his lips shut at a warning glare from Sheppard. He hadn’t the foggiest idea why the man had this particular effect on him—no one else would—but Rodney maintained his silence and let Sheppard ask the questions.</p>
<p>“What do they look like?”</p>
<p>Madison ran to her desk and returned with a fistful of drawings, which she handed to Sheppard, who flipped through them with thoughtful consideration. Rodney noticed a small artifact among Madison’s things and pocketed it while she wasn’t looking. He almost chided her for going in his laboratory without permission, but something in Sheppard’s raised eyebrows kept him silent.</p>
<p>“Teyla is very pretty. She likes tea. She always knows what to say when I’m scared or upset. She has long hair and she wears lots of fur. And she fights!” Madison threw her arms up in a perfect blocking move, only to shift position and perform another block.</p>
<p>Sheppard exchanged a startled glance with Rodney. He looked just as dumbfounded as Rodney felt.</p>
<p>“And Ronon?” Rodney prompted.</p>
<p>“He’s big. And fierce. Like the strong man in the circus.” Madison clenched her fists and flexed her arms like a man showing off his biceps. “But he’s part lion. He has green eyes like a cat and a mane.”</p>
<p>Unexpected disappointment rose up in Rodney’s breast. “We’re wasting our time. There’s no man-beast roaming the halls here. She’s making that up.”</p>
<p>Sheppard shot him a quelling glance and passed him the drawings. “When Ronon and Teyla come to visit, where do you usually see them? Here? In the nursery?”</p>
<p>“Sometimes.” Madison put her thumb in her mouth again, only to remove it and add, “Sometimes in the garden. I’ve seen them in the hallway too.” She leaned forward to whisper loudly, “When I have them to tea, it’s just pretend you know. But they are real. I <em>know</em> they’re real.”</p>
<p>“I know they are.” Sheppard didn’t sound as though he was humoring Madison at all. “I’d really like to meet them. The next time you see them, you’ll let your Uncle Meredith and me know, okay?”</p>
<p>Madison nodded so vigorously; her curls bounced.</p>
<p>Rodney stared at the childish depictions of Madison’s imaginary friends. For a four-year-old, she had an amazing imagination. The drawings included another one of the green “monster” that Madison had drawn before. He folded the papers and shoved them in his pocket. Really, the child should be illustrating for one of Rider Haggard’s stories.</p>
<p>Mrs. Biro took charge again and ushered Madison back to her studies.</p>
<p>“Where to now?” Rodney asked when Sheppard paused in the corridor outside the nursery room door.</p>
<p>He plucked at his lower lip for a moment, and then looked up with a gleam in his eye. “I think we need to get dressed for the weather.”</p>
<p>“Go outside?” Rodney glanced down the hallway to the small window visible at the far end filling the corridor with a blinding light. “As in, where it is cold and wet again?”</p>
<p>“As in let’s go see if we can find the source of that strange blue light last night.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” That actually sounded interesting. “All right. I’ll have the groom bring the sleigh around front. It will be faster than trying to slog through the snow.”</p>
<p>They went their separate ways on the second floor. Rodney sent for a footman and had him take a message to the stables while he hunted up his outerwear. Perkins had seen to his clothing the night before, and even the knitted scarf was dry. Perkins had also emptied the pockets and placed the contents in a leather bag for ease of carrying. Even better, he’d wrapped some bread and cheese in paper and tucked that inside the bag as well. Banging open drawers as he went, Rodney loaded the satchel with anything else he thought might be useful.</p>
<p>He came bustling out of his room in his customary hurry, only to nearly run into Kavanaugh.</p>
<p>“What are you doing skulking around up here?” Rodney growled. “Guest quarters are in the East Wing.”</p>
<p>“My apologies.” Kavanaugh’s oily little smile belied any attempt at a sincere expression of regret. “Such a large home. One gets so easily turned around.”</p>
<p>Rodney narrowed his eyes. Sheppard had said almost the same thing when Rodney had encountered him in his labs the day before and yet somehow Kavanaugh’s words were full of sly menace, whereas Sheppard had been full of charm.</p>
<p>“Or perhaps one is looking for something one can use in tonight’s séance? Something produced like a conjurer’s trick as proof of one’s connections on the spiritual plane?” Rodney lost track of how many times he’d said “one” and switched to a more direct approach with a scowl. “I’m warning you, Kavanaugh. I won’t hold with any chicanery at tonight’s séance. If I think for one moment—”</p>
<p>Kavanaugh’s eyes narrowed to angry slits, all pretense of urbanity wiped from his features. “Isn’t it said that one who lives in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones? Perhaps you should think carefully before tossing any stones in my direction, Sir Rodney.”</p>
<p>He was fishing. He had to be. He was taking blind aim in the dark in the hopes of getting Rodney to back off.</p>
<p>“Unless, of course, you’re in the habit of inviting your <em>guests</em> into your bedroom on a regular basis?” Kavanaugh’s smirk was back. He reached up to brush his moustache with an air of having scored a hit.</p>
<p>Rodney felt the blood drain from his face and then return with pounding force. Certain his coloring had given him away, he very nearly began to bluster, only caught himself at the last second. “If my guests are in the habit of contracting severe hypothermia, which I sincerely hope they’re not, as host, I am all too willing to take whatever measures are necessary to make sure they don’t expire in my home. I’d even try to keep <em>you</em> alive.”</p>
<p>Head elevated, chin thrust out, he pushed past Kavanaugh and clattered down the stairs. He probably should contact that newspaper office in London and get them to drop the planned piece on charlatan spiritualists he’d written after Jeannie’s plans had come to light. As soon as he got back from his outing with Sheppard.</p>
<p>When Rodney reached the landing leading to the main floor, he glanced down and saw Sheppard waiting for him. The Major was dressed in his greatcoat and wearing leather gloves. A red woolen scarf tied around his neck and tucked into his lapels made for a brilliant splash of color. Hatless, his rakish hair defied the laws of gravity to stand up in little spikes. Hearing Rodney’s tread on the stairs, Sheppard looked up, and his face creased into a smile.</p>
<p>It was a smile that stopped hearts in their rhythm. Small wonder the man hadn’t been arrested for that lethal smile before.</p>
<p>Oh dear. Sheppard was a stranger temporarily in Rodney’s life. They’d shared a moment of physical intimacy in the manner of men for whom such a thing was rare but also without meaning. He had no right to look up at Rodney with such anticipatory delight on his face, as though they were about to embark on a thrilling adventure together. As though there were no other person on the planet he’d rather be with.</p>
<p>
  <em>Unless, of course, that were true.</em>
</p>
<p>Rodney ruthlessly squashed such mawkish sentiments and clattered down the stairs. “Well, let’s be about it then. The sleigh should be ready by now.”</p>
<p>When they stepped outside, it was into a brilliant winter wonderland. Sometime during the night, the snow had changed to freezing rain, glazing the shrubbery near the house with a glistening coating of ice. Sunlight shimmered off the snow, forcing Rodney to shield his eyes with a gloved hand.</p>
<p>“Tinted lenses. That’s what we need. Some day I’m going to figure out how to make spectacles with lenses tinted so they allow vision but block glare. It’s on my list.”</p>
<p>They walked down the steps and up to the sleigh, Sheppard naturally taking the driver’s seat and picking up the reins without question. “Your list?”</p>
<p>Rodney climbed up beside him and pulled the heavy wool blanket over his legs with gratitude. “Yes. My list. Of things I’m going to invent. I’m going to be rich and famous someday. You’ll see.”</p>
<p>“Uh-huh.” Sheppard made a sort of non-committal noise, then slapped the reins on the rump of the horse and clucked to her. She stepped off at a brisk trot, and the sleigh swung away from the house.</p>
<p>Had the night before been magical? It was nothing compared to this moment. Crisp, clean air cut with its sharpness, almost painful as it was breathed in, and yet it made Rodney feel somehow more alive. Rubbing at eyes now watering with the brilliant reflection off the snow, he marveled at the infinite shades of color visible in the seemingly near-white spectrum—everything from crystalline snowy fields to the delicate brushes of lavender on the underside of a branch dripping with icicles. The sky was a brilliant blue, Rodney’s breath curled out of his mouth in a cloud of vapor, and the sound of the sleigh bells and the crunch of the horse’s hooves delighted him in a way he couldn’t explain. Perhaps it was because Sheppard was sitting upright beside him, instead of in an inert heap on the floorboards. He was off on an adventure in excellent company. What more could a man of science want?</p>
<p>Rodney cleared his throat. “Nice day, eh?”</p>
<p>Sheppard glanced at him. From the side view, Rodney appreciated the ticking of silver in his sideburns, even more apparent in the strong light of day, and the way the skin around his eyes crinkled in a smile.</p>
<p>“Yeah.” Sheppard took a deep, appreciative breath. “Nice.”</p>
<p>Mentally, Rodney thumped his forehead several times. <em>Nice</em> day? Nice <em>day</em>? Some conversationalist he was.</p>
<p>He took refuge in a change of subject. “It seems clear to me my description of the window in my vision of Miss Keller last night means something to you. I’m guessing it was something similar to your vision in the desert?”</p>
<p>“I can’t say for sure.” Sheppard’s drawl curled around Rodney and drew him in like an arm slung around the shoulder of a friend. “But it sounded familiar, you know?”</p>
<p>“And this blue light we’re going in search of—that would be…?”</p>
<p>“It reminded me of the big gate I saw in my vision—the one that released a wave of water that people rode to other places.” Sheppard paused to shoot him a defensive glare. “I know that makes me sound like a candidate for the local asylum, but it’s what I saw. Water shot out of the gate and then collapsed back into it, and people walked through the wall of water and disappeared.”</p>
<p>“I thought you called it a ring last night.”</p>
<p>“Well, it’s shaped like a ring but it’s a gate. Gates lead to someplace else.” There seemed to be no changing Sheppard’s mind on this one.</p>
<p>“I hardly think what it’s called matters at the moment.” Rodney was determined that any paper published on this phenomenon would <em>definitely</em> call it a ring. “The point is, I don’t think you’re off your chump. There’s this young German fellow—Steinbrenner? Eienberg?—something like that. Anyway, with a little mentoring by yours truly, I think he’s going to produce some brilliant work in the next decade or so. We’ve been exchanging thoughts on the possibility of bridges through space-time. Damned if your ‘gate’ doesn’t sound like something along those lines.”</p>
<p>“You believe me.” Sheppard turned to face Rodney with a small laugh. “Lady Elizabeth wants to believe me, but deep down, I don’t think she does. Miss Heightmeyer thinks I need my head examined.”</p>
<p>“Miss Who? Oh, right. The companion. Who cares what she thinks? The point is, you think there’s some kind of gate here—a portal if you will—and I happen to be missing a former fiancée. Weird artifacts have shown up on my land. Things that defy explanation. My niece thinks she’s seeing outlandish people that a four-year-old mind shouldn’t be able to imagine—you saw the drawing of the monster she made—and we both saw something blue light up the sky last night. Oh, by the way, look at this.” He fished the pendant-shaped device he’d taken from Madison out of his pocket and held it up. “Madison had this among her things. What if this is also a projector like the one you activated? I wouldn’t think she could turn it on because I can’t but—”</p>
<p>“Maybe you have a whatchamacall’em—a recessive gene? And your niece has a stronger version of it?”</p>
<p>“Exactly.” Really, it was nice not having to explain everything to the person you were speaking to. “And what if young Eien-whatever is right? That space-time bridges exist. Couldn’t that explain everything?”</p>
<p>“Once you eliminate the impossible,” Sheppard murmured, almost to himself. He shook his head slightly. “You think we might be able to locate Miss Keller. You think she went through the gate to… wherever.”</p>
<p>“Possibly. Though if she came back through last night when we saw the light, the only thing we might find this morning is her frozen corpse.”</p>
<p>Sheppard’s face creased in a sudden smile. “You’re such a romantic.”</p>
<p>Rodney rolled his eyes, but the temptation to smile back was strong. “I’m just saying, it makes sense. Those crystals and devices have to have a purpose. And they certainly didn’t originate around here.”</p>
<p>The sleigh swung toward the woods, and the mare slowed as she forged ahead through deeper snow.</p>
<p>“If you’re right, and I’m not saying you are,” Sheppard paused as he expertly guided the horse around a snow-covered branch. “Then what? Let’s say we find this gate. Suppose we can figure out how to make it work. Do we go through? Not knowing what’s on the other side?”</p>
<p>“The vision would suggest Miss Keller survived the journey.”</p>
<p>“It would also suggest she’s trapped and can’t come back. This portal, if that’s what it is, seems to be a one-way pathway. What’s to say we wouldn’t get trapped as well?”</p>
<p>“No offense to Miss Keller, but what if she simply doesn’t know how to make the gate work? As for getting stuck there, if it meant getting us out of the séance this evening, I’m not sure I’d mind,” Rodney said darkly. His brain skipped a beat as he remembered Kavanaugh’s threats. “Um, I think I should mention Kavanaugh seems predisposed to think there’s something between us.”</p>
<p>“Well, he’d be wrong.” Sheppard spoke decisively, and the firmness of his reply snuffed out the flicker of hope Rodney nurtured. He slew his glance around at Rodney. “Where would he get an idea like that anyway?”</p>
<p>Rodney stared up at the snow-laden branches above as they passed beneath them. “Snooping, I imagine. Perhaps even bribing the servants. I’m… I’m not the easiest of masters. I’m sure many of my servants dislike me intensely.” He looked down at his clasped gloved hands. “It’s never mattered before.”</p>
<p>Sheppard inhaled sharply, as though about to speak, but after casting a sideways glance at Rodney, seemed to change his mind regarding what he was about to say. Those delectable lips firmed into a hard line. “It’s not a problem. Repeat after me: there’s nothing between us.”</p>
<p>Ouch. That stung more than Rodney liked to admit. When he spoke, discouragement colored his voice. “There’s nothing between us.”</p>
<p>“Say it like you mean it, McKay.” The drawl was gone. Sheppard spoke in cool, clipped tones. “He’s got no proof. All you have to do is deny it. Keep denying it.”</p>
<p>Oh. <em>Oh</em>.</p>
<p>Well, that wasn’t quite as bad as he thought. Not that he had any reason for being hopeful in the first place.</p>
<p>“You’re right,” Rodney said briskly. “Though I suppose it means I should stop threatening to expose him as a fraud. I suspect that’s the whole reason he’s taking this tack in the first place. It angers me to know he gets away with such mercenary manipulation, however. Almost as much as it burns to know I wouldn’t be in this stupid mess at all had I not been trying to quell rumors about my life in the first place.”</p>
<p>Sheppard flicked him a glance that stuck Rodney as vaguely sympathetic. Or constipated. With Sheppard, it was hard to tell.</p>
<p>“The way I see it,” Sheppard said at last, “is you only have three options: toe society’s line and forget what you want, live your life in secrecy but pretend you’re not, or find a place where it doesn’t matter.”</p>
<p>“Does such a place exist?” Rodney asked as Sheppard pulled the mare to a stop.</p>
<p>“We might be about to find out.” Sheppard flashed him a quick grin and knotted the reins around the front of the sleigh. “This is as far as we can go with the horse. We’ll have to walk from here.”</p>
<p>Walking through the snow was surprisingly difficult. Uncomfortable, too. Despite wearing boots this time, in a matter of minutes, the damp had seeped through to his toes. “That’s another thing I’m going to invent. Boots that don’t leak and keep your feet warm.”</p>
<p>The view walking behind Sheppard wasn’t bad. Not bad at all. Each time he lifted a foot to clear the snow, his ass flexed and bunched beneath his trousers.</p>
<p>“So you’re just going to open your own line of men’s clothing? Call it McKays, or something?”</p>
<p>“That’s not a bad idea.” Rodney forwent the snapping of his fingers. “But the answer is no. I’m going to invent the things necessary for other people to make sunglasses and footwear, and then reap financial rewards for the patents.”</p>
<p>“Smart.”</p>
<p>“Smartest man in the entire world, as a matter of fact.”</p>
<p>“Modest, too.” The sarcasm in Sheppard’s voice amused rather than annoyed Rodney.</p>
<p>He opened his mouth to say something suitably snarky in return when Sheppard suddenly pulled to an abrupt stop and lifted his hand in a fist beside his head.</p>
<p>Rodney almost ran into him. “What’s the matter? A little warning would have been nice.”</p>
<p>Sheppard shot him a glare. He made the gesture again. “I gave the signal for ‘hold’.”</p>
<p>“Whose signal? I have no idea what you’re talking about. And why are you giving signals when we’re in the middle of the forest? A simple, “Hold up there, Sir Rodney” would suffice.”</p>
<p>Sheppard spun and placed a gloved hand over Rodney’s mouth, the cold leather making him squeak when it touched his skin. “Will you shut up for a minute? I thought I heard something.”</p>
<p>Rodney stood quivering, breathing through his nose as he watched Sheppard’s hawklike eyes scan the woods. Only belatedly did Sheppard seem to realize he was still pressing a hand to Rodney’s mouth, and when he swung his gaze back to Rodney’s face, their eyes locked for several long seconds before Sheppard dropped his hand. The cold must have heightened Sheppard’s color because red brushed his cheeks.</p>
<p>“Nope. Nothing. Must have been a bird.”</p>
<p>Sheppard moved off again with studied nonchalance while Rodney struggled to get his breathing back under control.</p>
<p>“Nothing between us my ass,” he muttered.</p>
<p>“I heard that,” Sheppard’s voice floated back to him on the crisp, clean air.</p>
<p>Rodney made an obscene gesture behind Sheppard’s back but given the smooth way Sheppard returned it without looking back, Rodney suspected the move had also been predicted.</p>
<p>“Promises, promises,” Rodney mouthed in response.</p>
<p>At least three quarters of an hour later, the adventure was beginning to lose appeal. “Are you sure you know where you’re going?” Rodney asked.</p>
<p>“I know where I’m going,” Sheppard snapped. “Everything looks different in the snow, okay?”</p>
<p>“Great. We’re lost. I hope you realize when my feet break into a thousand frozen fractals and fall off, you’ll have to carry me back to the sleigh.”</p>
<p>“I dunno. I might just leave you here.”</p>
<p>“Leave me? That’s a fine turn of events. After I rescued you last night!”</p>
<p>“Speaking of which—you were here too. I don’t suppose you remember where you found me, do you?”</p>
<p>“Hah! You don’t know where we are.” Rodney had visions of lording this moment over Sheppard the rest of his life—or at least as long as Sheppard was in it. He came to a shuffling stop, wincing at the pain in his poor frigid feet. “Let’s see. I thought last night you were headed for the old barrow on the property. That’s where I found those crystals and odd devices earlier in the summer.”</p>
<p>Rodney glanced around. Everything <em>did</em> look different in the snow, but he thought he could make out the faint suggestion of a path. “This way,” he said with utter authority.</p>
<p>Sheppard fell into place alongside him. “Did Miss Keller know about the barrow?”</p>
<p>Rodney frowned as he tried to recall any such conversation with Jennifer. Sadly, other than the moment when she broke off their engagement, he had difficulty recalling any conversation with her at all. “I’m sure I mentioned it. It was an unusual find, after all. As a matter of fact, I submitted a paper on the artifacts to the Royal Society.”</p>
<p>“So that means any fellow member of the Society would know about the barrow as well. Did you get anyone interested in wanting to come excavate?”</p>
<p>“Lord, yes.” Rodney rubbed between his eyes. He’d never been good with names. “There was a man named Jackson who was rather insistent. But not as annoying as some Russian professor whose name sounded like someone clearing their throat. He got quite nasty when I turned him down. I told him that if any excavation was going to be done on my land it would be done by me.”</p>
<p>“His name wouldn’t have been Kolya, by any chance?” Sheppard’s voice took on a silky quality that made a little shiver run up Rodney’s spine that had nothing to do with the cold.</p>
<p>“Might have been. I expect so. Why?”</p>
<p>“Mme Sora worked with someone named Kolya a while back. Maybe she still does.”</p>
<p>“I <em>knew</em> there was something off about her.” Rodney smacked a gloved fist into his hand.</p>
<p>“You thought she was a looney bird.”</p>
<p>“A looney bird with ulterior motives. I bet she was just looking for an excuse to get onto the estate.”</p>
<p>“You think she might be holding Miss Keller hostage?”</p>
<p>It was a possibility that bore scrutiny. It certainly made more sense than supposing Jennifer had stepped through a magic gate into another world. But then he shook his head. “For that plan to work, she’d have to have Miss Keller imprisoned somewhere relatively close by, wouldn’t she? I’m certain that’s not the case. The entire village is on the alert, and there have been searches across the county. No one saw Miss Keller leave the area, so it’s unlikely she was nabbed somewhere else, either. And what would be the point of holding Miss Keller hostage? Mme Sora couldn’t have known my sister would invite a bunch of spiritualists to a house party.”</p>
<p>“You’re probably right, though these confidence tricksters will often study their victims for months in advance. We still have to consider it.” Sheppard seemed loathe to return to the reasonable explanations behind Jennifer’s disappearance.</p>
<p>For that matter, so was Rodney.</p>
<p>“Agreed.” Ahead, he recognized the rise in the land that indicated the location of the barrow. “It’s not that much further.”</p>
<p>“What else did you find in this barrow of yours?”</p>
<p>Rodney thought for a moment. “The crystals I showed you. And the device you made light up, as well as a couple of smaller items, like the one Madison had. There were some bones, and some coins that dated the burial around 5<sup>th</sup> or 6<sup>th</sup> century BC, but that doesn’t make sense archeologically. I think that’s why that man Jackson was so excited.”</p>
<p>“And no one has been excavating around here since this summer?”</p>
<p>There was something in Sheppard’s tone that caught Rodney’s attention. When he glanced at Sheppard, he had a hand over his eyes to shield them as he stared off to the left at a stretch of woods where the trees had been… removed. It was the only word that could describe what had happened to them. They’d been cut off near ground level in a wide path, without any evidence of burning or remnants of sawdust. Even more unusual, there was no sign of any snow long a wide swath of land. It had been cleared somehow. Rodney visually followed the open path back to the hillside and saw something sticking up out of the ridge.</p>
<p>“What the hell is that?” Rodney pointed at the strange objects poking up out of the snow. A huge ring seemed to be buried into the side of the hill, and there was a large box-like console off to one side. He turned to Sheppard in astonishment. “Those weren’t here before!”</p>
<p>“I think someone’s been digging on your estate for a while now.” Sheppard’s glance took in the mounds of snow-covered dirt that bore evidence to unauthorized excavation. He indicated the ring. “That looks a helluva lot like the gate I saw in my vision. And if it is, then that’s where your Miss Keller has gone. Through the gate.”</p>
<p>“She’s not my Miss Keller,” Rodney said sharply as they continued slogging toward the gate. “This is <em>amazing</em>. You realize that, right?”</p>
<p>“You realize someone has been mucking around on your land behind your back, right?” Sheppard looked around as though he expected someone to surprise them.</p>
<p>Rodney ignored him and half-stumbled through the snow toward the device next to the gate. “I think this is a control panel of some sort. Look at these symbols.” His hands moved reverently over the tilted panels of runes surrounding a large reddish stone in the middle.</p>
<p>“That’s a lot of symbols.” Sheppard glanced up at the gate. “They seem to match the ones on the gate there.”</p>
<p>“Maybe the symbols indicate locations? How you determine where to go? How you open it? There are nine symbols on the gate.”</p>
<p>Sheppard stared at the device for a moment. “Assuming you need a combination of symbols to create a specific address… let’s say at least seven… that’s something like sixty-three billion potential addresses.”</p>
<p>Rodney just stared at him.</p>
<p>“What?” Sheppard asked. “I’m good with numbers.”</p>
<p>“Great Scott. I could kiss you right now.” Rodney was focused on the device, so he almost missed the way Sheppard glanced sharply at him.</p>
<p>Almost.</p>
<p>Telling himself the reason his cheeks suddenly burned was due to the cold, Rodney experimentally pressed a symbol. Nothing happened.</p>
<p>“Hey, be careful with that. When the gate opens, it obviously sends a wave of destructive energy through it first.” Sheppard motioned toward the cleared trees in front of the gate.</p>
<p>“I don’t think so. At least not intentionally. Not an energy beam, I mean.” Rodney frowned as he punched more symbols. “I think the ring releases a backwash of quantum particles when it opens a bridge in the space-time continuum. Once it springs back into the gate, you can walk through it. Like the people in your vision.”</p>
<p>“Didn’t I just say that?” Sheppard’s drawl had a bite to it. “Except for the what did you say—quantum particles? I thought a quantum was an amount of money.”</p>
<p>Rodney waved his hand. “Yes. Yes. But there are things that can’t be explained by traditional physics. I’ve been discussing this with some physicists, and was telling Bohr there has to be subatomic particles that account for—”</p>
<p>“I guess he came by the name Bore honestly,” Sheppard smirked.</p>
<p>“Oh, never mind. Why do I even bother?” Rodney dropped down to open a panel beneath the dial. “Look! There’s some sort of generator in here. Oh, there are crystals, too!”</p>
<p>Sheppard squatted, hands on knees, to look inside. His knees didn’t even crack or pop, damn him. Pointing, he said, “Does that look damaged to you?”</p>
<p>Rodney smacked his hand away automatically. “Don’t touch. We don’t know what will happen if you touch it, Major Magic Hands.”</p>
<p>“Are we talking about this morning again? Because if so… thanks.”</p>
<p>Rodney didn’t need to look at Sheppard to know he was smirking again. That fact was clearly evidence in his voice. Instead, he reached inside the console. “I think you’re right. This crystal looks burned out.”</p>
<p>Reaching inside his leather satchel, Rodney pulled out a couple of crystals. He removed the damaged crystal from the unit for comparison. After hefting them in his hands, he made his choice and slotted it into the machine.</p>
<p>It began to hum quietly.</p>
<p>Rodney turned to Sheppard, excitement brimming over. “We did it!”</p>
<p>Sheppard grinned at him, only to break off and whip his head around. “What the—”</p>
<p>Behind them, a mound of snow had shifted. A figure rose up from beneath it, snow cascading off broad shoulders, nestled in the creases of a heavy leather coat and frosting the coiled locks of hair and beard of the man within. He raised a hand to reveal a massive handgun of a design Rodney had never seen before. Just as the whine of building energy reached his ears, Sheppard threw himself into Rodney, knocking him into the snow. A red bolt crackled overhead Sheppard cursed, clutching his arm. He collapsed on top of Rodney.</p>
<p>Rolling Sheppard off him, Rodney patted his chest looking for signs of a wound. “You’re hit! Where does it hurt?”</p>
<p>Grimacing, Sheppard spoke through gritted teeth. “I’m fine. Just a little numb. Take cover, McKay.”</p>
<p>Instead, Rodney bellowed, “Stop shooting at us, Ronon!”</p>
<p>He scuttled behind the console, dragging Sheppard with him. It was heavy going through the snow, but Sheppard rolled to his knees and managed to get behind the device with Rodney.</p>
<p>A peep around the edge of the console revealed nothing but the snowy woods.</p>
<p>“Do you see him? I don’t see him.” Rodney panted between words.</p>
<p>“How do you know my name?”</p>
<p>The demand seemed to echo from all around them. Rodney got to his feet slowly, rising into a low crouch.</p>
<p>“What are you, nuts?” Sheppard hissed, reaching to pull him down.</p>
<p>Rodney sidestepped Sheppard and lifted his head to speak. His words came out with a quaver, which quickly turned into a simmering rage. “I know your name because my niece has been seeing visions of you and some woman named Teyla.” He made finger quotes over the word <em>visions</em>. “And some green monsters. She says you fight the monsters. You came through the ring, right? Only it’s broken and you can’t leave. Well, I’m telling you, you imbecile, you don’t shoot the people trying to fix the ring!”</p>
<p>Sheppard shook his head and used the console to pull himself up. His left arm hung limply at his side as he spoke. “We’re looking for someone who’s missing. A Miss Keller. We’re only interested in finding her.”</p>
<p>Rodney pulled Madison’s papers out of his bag and held them in the air, his hand shaking with emotion. “Take a look. She drew pictures of you.”</p>
<p>A giant bear of a man stepped out from behind a tree, where his snow-dusted brown coat had blended in with the scenery. Bearded, with long hair matted into tangled locks, Rodney understood why Madison had described him as a Lion Man. He still held the weapon at the ready, but the muzzle was slightly pointed downward. “Pretty woman?” he asked. “Cries a lot? Wants to go home?”</p>
<p>“You know where she is?” Rodney took a step forward, only to be stopped by Sheppard’s hand on his arm and the way Ronon’s gun snapped up.</p>
<p>“I might have seen her. Did you fix the ring? I need to leave.”</p>
<p>Rodney shot Sheppard a triumphant look. Ring, not gate. Sheppard nudged him with a frown.</p>
<p>“Tell us where to find Miss Keller first.” Sheppard’s voice was calm, but oddly gave the impression of being as immovable as a brick wall.</p>
<p>Madison’s Lion Man shook his head, frozen locks of hair not moving as he did so. “I’ve already been here too long. The Wraith will come. If you’ve fixed the ring, I need to go. Now.”</p>
<p>“Are the Wraith tall green people with white hair?” Rodney asked, holding up Madison’s drawing for viewing. Realizing it was upside down, he flipped it.</p>
<p>Ronon squinted at the drawing from where he stood. “Have you never heard of the Wraith?”</p>
<p>Rodney exchanged a glance with Sheppard. They both shook their heads.</p>
<p>“Count yourself lucky, then.” Ronon walked toward them, waving them aside with his gun. “Let me go. They can track me. You don’t want them coming here. They’ll kill your people.”</p>
<p>“What if we don’t fix the gate?” Sheppard asked.</p>
<p>Ronon merely sneered. “It will just take them longer to get here. And then you’ll have no way to escape. Let me go, lead them in another direction. Then you bury the ring and hope they don’t decide to check you out.”</p>
<p>“How is it we can understand you? And you us?” Rodney glared at Sheppard when he got nudged again. “What? It’s a valid question! If he’s from a completely different realm, why isn’t there a communication problem?”</p>
<p>They looked at Ronon, who shrugged. “I’ve never had any problem understanding anyone, and I’m from Sateda. Teyla’s from Athos. We understand each other just fine.”</p>
<p>Rodney punched Sheppard in the arm. Lightly, of course. As it was his numb arm, however, it made little difference. “It has to be connected to the gate travel. Some sort of instantaneous translator.” Rodney rubbed his hands together. Life through the gate had to be <em>amazing</em>.</p>
<p>“Who are these Wraith?” Sheppard asked, his eyebrow suggesting this was obviously the more important question. “What do they want with you?”</p>
<p>Ronon stalked forward and grabbed Sheppard by the coat. Rodney may have squeaked—a little—but Sheppard didn’t even flinch. He just calmly stared back at Ronon.</p>
<p>“The Wraith come in the night and steal your family as they sleep. They sweep down out of the skies and take your kin as they work in the fields. They rain blood and terror on your lands and suck the life out of your people with their bare hands.” He snarled in Sheppard’s face and let him go. “And they put trackers in people like me and hunt them for sport.”</p>
<p>“How long have they been hunting you?” Rodney asked at the same time Sheppard said, “This tracker. Have you tried taking it out?”</p>
<p>“I can’t reach it.” Ronon stepped back and rubbed a hand over his face.</p>
<p>“Maybe we can,” Sheppard said. “McKay. Can you run back to the house and bring Dr. Beckett?”</p>
<p>Rodney shook his head. “Smarter to take Ronon to the stables and have Beckett meet us there. If we’re doing makeshift surgery, the barn would be faster. By the time I went and came back…”</p>
<p>“Right. Ronon, come with us. We’ve got a doctor who probably can dig this tracker out if you know where it is. Then we can destroy it—”</p>
<p>Ronon interrupted. “Even if you can remove it, if you simply destroy it, the Wraith will still come looking. You need to take it through the gate to somewhere else.”</p>
<p>Sheppard’s smug smile seemed to say <em>gate, not ring</em> but instead of following up on that, he said, “No problem. We want to find Miss Keller anyway. How long do you think we’ve got?”</p>
<p>Ronon gave the gate a hard stare. “It took me longer to get here than any other place I’ve gated to. I just dialed the address your lady friend came from, though it was weird because it had an extra symbol. That’s a first for me. I thought for a second I wasn’t going to make it at all. If the gate failed after I came in, then they’d have to follow by ship, so it would take them awhile, depending on how far away we are from the City of the Ancestors.” He gave Sheppard a cool glance. “That’s where your Miss Keller is, with Teyla. I had to leave so the Wraith wouldn’t find the city. It’s been hidden for centuries.”</p>
<p>“McKay—” Sheppard began, but Rodney was already moving.</p>
<p>“On it,” he said, as he knelt and removed the crystal he’d replaced. “That should at least prevent someone from coming through the gate while we’re gone. We can reactivate it once we’ve retrieved the tracker.”</p>
<p>“Let’s go, then. You got anything for this man to eat in that big reticule of yours, McKay?”</p>
<p>Sheppard dropped in alongside Rodney as they began walking back to the sleigh. Ronon stood where they left him, transfixed.</p>
<p>“It’s <em>not</em> a reticule,” Rodney snapped as he trudged through the snow. “It’s a satchel.”</p>
<p>“Looks like a big ladies’ handbag to me,” Sheppard smirked. “So, food or no food?”</p>
<p>Rodney reached into the bag and withdrew the small loaf of bread, holding it up in the air. “You mean like this? There’s cheese, too.”</p>
<p>Sheppard halted, causing Rodney to do the same. “You hear that, Ronon? We’ve got food.”</p>
<p>“Blankets, too,” Rodney added when he realized what Sheppard was doing. “Back at the sleigh.”</p>
<p>Ronon closed the distance between them in three strides and snatched the bread from Rodney’s hand, tearing at it with his teeth. Sheppard gave Rodney a sly grin as the three of them began moving again.</p>
<p>“So, Ronon,” Sheppard drawled. “Tell me about this City of the Ancestors…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The less said about the next few hours, the better. They’d brought Ronon to the stables, where he predictably refused any sort of laudanum or alcohol to dull the pain, and when Sheppard had dryly offered to stun him with his own weapon, Ronon’s fingers tightened on the grip. What Rodney had mistaken for bandaging material wrapped around the same grip turned out to be long white hair—the hair of Ronon’s enemies. The hair of a Wraith.</p>
<p>When Ronon had shed his coat and removed his shirt, both he and Sheppard had been transfixed by the number of scars on his body and the tattoos on his arms. As well, to be honest, by his impressive musculature. Sheppard had asked about the tattoos, only to receive Ronon’s smile and “Kills” as an explanation.</p>
<p>Carson had leaned over to Rodney and whispered, “He’s not from around here, is he? A lascar, I take it?”</p>
<p>Rodney had just nodded.</p>
<p>Carson had been appalled at the idea of attempting to cut something out of Ronon’s back in the stables without anesthesia, so they tried to explain the tracking device as being a means of preventing lascars from escaping their masters.</p>
<p>Ronon wasn’t having any of it. “The Wraith aren’t my masters,” he spat, and tried to leave. Sheppard had calmed him down again, and finally told the truth: Ronon was from another place and time and being hunted by ruthless killers. Ronon had treated them all to a graphic description of what the Wraith did to their victims—it turned out he hadn’t been exaggerating when he said the Wraith sucked the life out of their victims. He meant it literally.</p>
<p>It also turned out when Ronon had referred to the Wraith’s ships, he hadn’t meant a frigate or schooner. No, Ronon was referring to spaceships. When he discovered Earth had no such technology, he’d tried to leave, but Sheppard talked him into staying, all the while shooting Rodney meaningful, gleeful glances with dancing eyebrows that said <em>spaceships</em>. Rodney couldn’t help but return them in kind, even as he’d worried about all the horrible ways someone could die in space (as opposed to all the horribly ways someone could die at sea…).</p>
<p>Carson had merely tossed his hands in the air and said, “Fine. Don’t tell me the truth then. Let’s get this surgery over with.”</p>
<p>Rodney had turned to Sheppard in consternation, but Sheppard had merely shrugged. Obviously, Carson wasn’t going to believe them.</p>
<p>Carson had a bug in his ear about aseptic conditions and the proper preparation of Ronon as a surgical patient. Because Rodney had vaguely recalled Jennifer complaining of the same, he’d backed Carson up when it came to a lengthy set up for the procedure, though twice Ronon had to be talked into lying back down on the bales of hay they’d stacked for an impromptu operating table.</p>
<p>“How am I supposed to find this wee tracker?” Carson had complained when it came time to cut into Ronon’s back.</p>
<p>Sheppard had gotten a funny look on his face—that sort of constipated look again—and simply said, “I’ll find it.”</p>
<p>He’d moved his hand, palm down, a scant half-inch across Ronon’s bared skin, looking very much like one of those old-time water diviners as he concentrated. His hand had hovered over a section of Ronon’s shoulder that bore a series of scars and he pointed. “There.”</p>
<p>“Well, that was certainly an educated guess, based on the number of times Ronon has attempted to dig the thing out himself.” Rodney had rolled his eyes.</p>
<p>Sheppard had narrowed his eyes in return. “I find things, remember? I’m telling you, it’s right here.”</p>
<p>When Beckett began digging around in Ronon’s back with a very sharp knife, Rodney had to step outside the stables and take several deep breaths of the cold air. He’d bent over his knees and inhaled sharply, swallowing hard against the tide of nausea that threatened to overtake him. From inside the barn, he’d heard Sheppard asking questions about the Wraith, about Ronon’s home world, about how the gate worked, all while Carson rolled his eyes and concentrated on his patient</p>
<p>Rodney had listened until he heard Carson say, “I’ve got you, you bugger!” He’d made the mistake of glancing into the open breezeway and had to turn his head at the sight of all the blood running down Ronon’s back and spilling onto the strawed floor. A few minutes later, Ronon had sat up sporting a bandage, and had pulled his shirt back on. Carson had collected the bottle of whiskey Ronon had refused to drink, and after instructing him on the proper care of the wound and when to have the stitches removed, he went back to the house, taking a swig as he walked away.</p>
<p>After an intense argument between Ronon and Sheppard as to who was going to take the tracker off planet (off planet!! The very notion made Rodney shiver with both anticipation and fear), the decision had been made: they would all go. Ronon because apparently he was indestructible, and he had Wraith to kill, Sheppard because he had to see if the City of Ancestors was the same one in his vision, and Rodney because… well, he needed to get Jennifer back home where she belonged. And besides, a city full of amazing technology advanced beyond his wildest dreams? Oh yeah, he was going.</p>
<p>Only when they got to the gate—or ring—or whatever, Rodney hadn’t been able to make it work. They got the console powered up, but they couldn’t redial the address Ronon had used.</p>
<p>“Let me get this straight,” Rodney said. “The stream only travels one way at a time. Once the gate is engaged, it takes you to the address you dialed. What happens if the other end of the gate is under water… or out in space?”</p>
<p>“A short trip and an ugly end for you.”</p>
<p>Rodney looked at Sheppard. “There has to be a way of sending a mirror or a telescope or something through first.”</p>
<p>Sheppard stubbornly shook his head. “We know Ronon’s address works and it leads to a city. We have to keep trying.”</p>
<p>“Well, the City of the Ancestors <em>was</em> underwater, but it came to the surface after I got there. Even if it sank under the sea again, the gate was in a shielded room. It should work.”</p>
<p>Sheppard stood frowning at Ronon, but Rodney got it. “Atlantis.” He punched Sheppard in the arm. This time Sheppard scowled and punched him back. “He’s talking about the city of <em>Atlantis</em>.”</p>
<p>“Right.” Sheppard’s expression was still surly. “Point being, we know that’s a relatively safe location.”</p>
<p>“Yes, but it may be too far away. Ronon said it took him longer to get here and the address used an extra symbol. What is there isn’t enough power to open the gate all the way back to wherever he came from? We could test this theory by dialing a different address, one with less symbols, just to see if the gate works.”</p>
<p>“Ah.” It was nice not having to explain everything to Sheppard. He clearly got what Rodney was driving at. “But we don’t know if a different address is a safe one.”</p>
<p>Ronon’s jaw tightened. “We don’t have a choice. I know a few places. Dial an address. If it works, send me through with the tracker. If I can, I’ll come back.”</p>
<p>“No.” Sheppard shook his head. “It’s too risky.”</p>
<p>Ronon straightened to his full height, which was very tall indeed. “If you hadn’t taken the tracker out, sooner or later I was a dead man. Age or injury would have taken me down. I’m not going to let the Wraith find your planet if I can help it. They destroyed mine.”</p>
<p>It was kind of hard to ague with that, and so they picked an address Ronon knew and punched the seven symbols in.</p>
<p>As each symbol was activated, the corresponding symbol on the gate lit up and an inner wheel engraved with the same symbols began to spin. When the matching symbols lined up with an outer rim maker, the wheel stopped, and the marker began to glow red.</p>
<p>The final symbol locked into place, and an explosion of blue water blew out of the ring, boiled in place for a moment, and then returned to the confines of the gate, shimmering in place.</p>
<p>Rodney’s mouth fell open. Well, now they knew what had happened to the trees in front of the gate.</p>
<p>“Neat,” Sheppard murmured.</p>
<p>Ronon, tracker in hand, shot them both an unreadable look and charged into the wall of water. Only there was no indication of wetness. He disappeared through the curtain of blue with a plopping sound, and a few seconds later, the “water” disappeared.</p>
<p>“Well, I guess that answers one question: a closer address works.” Rodney tapped his lips with an index finger as he thought. Somehow, he would have to boost the power on the console if they had any hopes of opening the gate as far as Atlantis. A vague plan began to form but he dismissed it as being too unpredictable. Still, with the way the weather was supposed to turn later this evening…</p>
<p>“Now what?” Sheppard asked.</p>
<p>“We wait.”</p>
<p>It was easier said than done. They had no way of knowing if Ronon had made it, or if he could return. Five minutes became fifteen, and then thirty. Rodney was on the verge of suggesting they go back to the house and wait in relative comfort when the gate began spinning again. Sheppard motioned Rodney to take cover behind some trees and pulled a handgun out of his coat pocket.</p>
<p>The gate opened with its signature burst of energy, and when the blast of “water” settled back into the ring, Ronon burst through the aperture at a dead run.</p>
<p>“Shut it down!” he shouted as a hail of arrows chased him.</p>
<p>Startled, Rodney slammed down on the controls, and the gate closed.</p>
<p>Ronon’s skin glistened with sweat. He had several twigs stuck in his hair, and his shirt was streaked with mud.</p>
<p>Sheppard asked, “You okay?” and the same time Rodney exclaimed, “What took you so long?”</p>
<p>Ronon shot a quelling look at Rodney before answering them both. “The addresses don’t match the places I know. I jumped through to four places before I destroyed the tracker. The fifth address wouldn’t lock, and I got a bad feeling about the sixth one and didn’t go through.”</p>
<p>“So, there’s either something wrong with the dialing system on our end, or this gate is so far out from Ronon’s previous location that the addresses don’t line up.” Rodney felt the blood leave his face. “Ronon, you could have jumped into a wall—or outer space if what you say about orbital stations is true. You could have <em>died</em>.”</p>
<p>“I had to take the tracker as far away as possible. Even so, the Wraith may come here eventually. Your world represents a new feeding ground for them.”</p>
<p>“How’d you get rid of it?” Sheppard asked.</p>
<p>“Threw it in a volcano.” Ronon’s grin was feral. “Let them track it there.”</p>
<p>Sheppard shared one of those soldiers bonding kind of grins with Ronon, which sent a little sharp pang of jealousy through Rodney.</p>
<p>“We know the gate works. But that doesn’t get your Miss Keller home.”</p>
<p>“Or you, either,” Sheppard added. “Not to worry. McKay will come up with something.”</p>
<p>Sheppard’s confidence in him made Rodney straighten. “Yes, well. I have some ideas on that. But I need to go back to my workshop.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They were putting the finishing touches on Rodney’s “lightning collector” as the sun began to dip behind the trees. The tall, metal device caged the dialing console and reached above the treeline. Rodney had spent all afternoon welding the bits in place and then erecting the tower with Ronon’s help. Sheppard had traveled back and forth for supplies as needed, as well as bringing a hamper full of food from Jeannie.</p>
<p>A brief break for lunch had resulted in an interesting turn of conversation when Sheppard casually asked Ronon about relationships in other parts of the universe. Ronon had answered with his usual brusqueness as Sheppard beat around the bush, until Rodney finally asked, “What about men being with men?”</p>
<p>Sheppard’s red-faced silence had nearly killed Rodney on the spot, but it was Ronon’s puzzlement that ultimately proved freeing. “What about them?”</p>
<p>“Is that a problem?” Rodney persisted, hating the slight stumble over his words.</p>
<p>Ronon’s frown deepened. “Why would it be?”</p>
<p>Rodney exchanged a glance with Sheppard, who quickly looked away.</p>
<p>It gave Rodney something to think about when he went back to work on the lightning collector.</p>
<p>“This is gonna work, right?” Sheppard asked when Ronon was out of earshot.</p>
<p>Where was the confidence in him Sheppard had shown earlier?</p>
<p>“I can’t accurately predict the timing of a lightning strike. However, my weather prediction models indicate a warm front moving through, to be followed by heavy rain this evening.” Rodney waved a hand at the tree branches, which moved with a restless breeze. Ice had been melting and dropping off the trees and bushes with a sibilant cracking sound all afternoon. “The odds are in favor of lightning. I’ve created a tower that should attract a strike and funnel the energy into the console. I’ve tried to adapt the generator to store the energy should a direct hit happen, but I don’t know if this technology will trap it or result in an explosion. We’d best be here on the spot when—if—it occurs.”</p>
<p>It was going to make for a long, cold, miserable evening. Hypothermia was a real threat.</p>
<p>Sheppard just nodded, as if he expected nothing less. Seriously, the man could at least <em>pretend</em> to be impressed.</p>
<p>“Come on. I want to show you something. Didn’t want to interrupt earlier.” Sheppard raised his voice to include Ronon. “I need you to take a look at this.”</p>
<p>They trudged through the woods a short distance to where melting snow revealed a pile of old clothes. It was only when they got closer that Rodney realized the clothes contained a rotting corpse. He lifted his arm over his mouth in appalled shock. “Who the hell is <em>that</em>?”</p>
<p>“I was hoping you could tell me. Not missing anyone from the estate, are you? The village? Besides Miss Keller, I mean.”</p>
<p>Rodney shook his head vigorously and leaned in for a closer look. “From the size of the corpse and the military uniform, I’d say this was a man.”</p>
<p>“Agreed. A Russian uniform, to be exact.” Sheppard flashed a glance at Ronon. “Not your handiwork, I take it?”</p>
<p>Ronon looked bored. “Not fresh enough. This body’s been out here for weeks. The only person I’ve shot is you.” He flashed a wickedly bright smile.</p>
<p>Sheppard narrowed his eyes. “Twice. You know, if it hadn’t been for McKay here, I would have frozen to death in the snow last night.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, well that turned out all right, didn’t it?” Ronon’s smile grew even more sly.</p>
<p>Sheppard cleared his throat and continued. “No sign of the cause of death, though the foxes have been at him. Likely this is the guy who uncovered your gate, McKay. That means someone else knows about it and is willing to kill.”</p>
<p>“But they couldn’t get it to work. Now that I have, they’ll be back.” Rodney shivered. “I can’t disable the gate this time while we return to the house. If so, we might miss a lightning strike.”</p>
<p>“I’ll stay.” Ronon was impassive.</p>
<p>It seemed unfair, especially since he’d been outside in the storm the night before, but Ronon didn’t think it was a big deal, and he was the best person suited to watch the gate.</p>
<p>“We may only get the one chance. The lightning could blow up the console, but if it works and we’re not here, you have to try to get back to Atlantis. Maybe you can send Jennifer—Miss Keller—back if you make it home.” Rodney didn’t like the idea someone might be watching them at this very moment, willing to overpower them to take control of the gate. “I’m concerned we could have a killer in our midst. How will we draw them out?”</p>
<p>Sheppard’s expression grew thoughtful as he stared at the gate for a long moment. Then his brow cleared, and he turned back to Rodney and Ronon. “I have a plan.”</p>
<p>Sheppard’s grin grew positively evil as he laid out his thoughts.</p>
<p>Rodney mulled plan over before he spoke. “That’s the craziest idea I’ve ever heard. But it might work.”</p>
<p>Ronon merely grunted.</p>
<p>Rodney followed Sheppard to the sleigh. Now that they knew exactly where to go, the trips back and forth to the house had gone much faster, but it still took time. Rodney was cold and wet and wanted nothing more than his tea and a hot bath, but Jeannie was waiting for them when they returned to the house.</p>
<p>She sailed into Rodney before they even got out of the sleigh. “Where have you been? You’ve been gone all day! You know you have guests, right? The séance will begin shortly after dinner.”</p>
<p>He’d forgotten about the damned séance. “Busy. Working. Still busy, so you’ll have to make my excuses for the evening.”</p>
<p>He tried to push past her and head into the house, but she caught him by the arm. The freshening breeze caught a loose curl and teased it across her face. Good. The conditions were ripening for a humdinger of a storm.</p>
<p>“I need to speak with you. Privately.” She gave Sheppard a nod and marched Rodney off, leaving Sheppard to give orders to the staff for the preparations for the evening.</p>
<p>She thrust him inside the library and shut the door. Crossing to the desk, she picked up a newspaper. “Kavanaugh is livid. Did you write a defamatory article about spiritualists for the paper?”</p>
<p>Guilt made him bluster. “I may have. So what if I did? Anyway, they haven’t printed it yet. I was going to ask them to retract it when I got back this afternoon.”</p>
<p>“Well, it’s too late for that. They printed it last week. It arrived with yesterday’s mail before the snow began. Why on Earth did you write it? If you weren’t so in love with the idea of being in print—”</p>
<p>“I beg your pardon!”</p>
<p>“Sir Rodney McKay, the eccentric inventor…”</p>
<p>“Let me see that!” Rodney snatched the paper from her hand. “It doesn’t say that.”</p>
<p>“It might as well. Meredith, I worked so hard to salvage your reputation and you’ve utterly destroyed it, just like that.” She snapped her fingers. Really, that was an annoying habit. Where had she picked it up?</p>
<p>“I never asked you to save my reputation and for your information, I’ve been working all afternoon on a means of returning Miss Keller to our realm. I know where she is, Jeannie!”</p>
<p>“Our realm?” She blinked at him as though he’d lost his mind.</p>
<p>Hurriedly, he explained. To her credit, she didn’t interrupt but listened intently during his recitation of the most recent events and the existence of a space-time bridge on the estate.</p>
<p>“That’s excellent news, Rodney, if indeed, you can bring Miss Keller home. But I fear that won’t placate Kavanaugh. He’s out for blood. I’m afraid he intends to bring you down in the worst possible way—and that means bringing down Major Sheppard with you.” She blushed, her attempt to be discreet causing an unusual embarrassment on her part.</p>
<p>“Maybe. Maybe not.” Rodney thought quickly. Sheppard wasn’t the only one who could come up with a plan on the spur of the moment. And the best part was Rodney’s plan would follow Sheppard’s until they diverged. “Here’s what I need you to do.”</p>
<p>He wondered at the picture they must make, two blonde heads leaning together with nearly identical expressions on their face, as he told her his thoughts.</p>
<p>“But…” Her brow furrowed as she listened. “Won’t this put you at great risk?”</p>
<p>“Greater than the risk of hard labor in prison for gross indecency? Jeannie. You know I’d never survive that.”</p>
<p>Her eyes narrowed and her lips tightened. “You’re right. But are you sure this is what you want? You could sell the estate, you know. Leave the country.”</p>
<p>“And go where? Where could I go where I could be free to be myself? It has to be this way.” He hesitated. “You have Kaleb and Madison. You’ll be fine.”</p>
<p>Unexpectedly she threw her arms around him in a crushing hug. After a moment she pulled back. “Ew. You’re cold and wet.”</p>
<p>“Thank you for pointing that out, Lady Obvious.” He shook off the unaccustomed rush of affection he had for his sister. “Come on, as Sheppard would say. We’ve got things to do.”</p>
<p>Her eyes narrowed again, but in speculation this time. “About Sheppard…”</p>
<p>“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” And on that note, Rodney swept out of the room.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A change of clothing and some hot tea did him a world of good. He ran into Sheppard on the way back downstairs. Sheppard had changed as well, dressed in a black suit with a white shirt with a black overcoat. On anyone else, it would have looked both severe and ridiculous, but somehow, it suited Sheppard.</p>
<p>Rodney saw he was carrying a leather bag, most likely a relic from his time in the war. He raised an eyebrow at the sight of it. “Going somewhere?”</p>
<p>“It’s going to be a long, cold night. I thought it prudent to bring extra gear. Figured a few weapons wouldn’t be amiss, either.” Sheppard hefted the bag to one shoulder with a sly grin. “Besides, if things get too boring, I might want to get a little reading done. Now that <em>War and Peace</em> is available in one bound copy, that is.”</p>
<p>Rodney didn’t dignify that with an answer. As if they would get bored.</p>
<p>“You’re not bringing anything?” Sheppard flicked him a glance. “Nothing to eat? An oilskin coat, perhaps? A journal to read?”</p>
<p>“My bag is already packed and waiting for me in the sleigh,” Rodney spoke loftily. “Just a few things we might need in case something goes wrong with the console.”</p>
<p>“Uh-huh.” Sheppard gave him a somewhat wary glance but said nothing further. Rodney hoped he wouldn’t notice that there was more than one bag in the sleigh. Rodney had directed several bags to be packed, as a matter of fact. “You know, if this works and the gate opens to Atlantis while we’re actually there…”</p>
<p>Rodney exchanged a long look with Sheppard on the marble steps in front of the manor. “If the gate opens to Atlantis while we’re there, I have to go through it. I have to find Miss Keller. I owe it to her.”</p>
<p>“Even if you might end up trapped there with her?”</p>
<p>“Would that be so bad, I wonder? Not trapped with Miss Keller, I mean, but remaining in Atlantis. Think of the things just waiting to be discovered there.”</p>
<p>Sheppard broke eye contact first. “Or waiting to kill you.”</p>
<p>“Well, we’ve survived childhood, which is better than a large portion of the population. But what after all, is our lifespan here? Fifty, sixty good years. We’re more than halfway to that now. I want to live before I die.”</p>
<p>Sheppard’s glance flicked like lightning over him. “Brave words, McKay.”</p>
<p>“Perhaps. Or perhaps I’m just tired of living a lie.” He left Sheppard behind on the steps as he walked down to the waiting sleigh.</p>
<p>Clouds scudded across the sky as they got into the sleigh, and once more Sheppard slapped the reins on the mare’s haunches to make her step forward into a lively trot. A rumble of thunder brought a smile to Rodney’s face.</p>
<p>He rubbed his hands together with glee. “Thunder is good. It means we’ll probably get lightning. If we get a direct strike—”</p>
<p>“Do you think it will be enough? How much energy do you think a lightning bolt produces?”</p>
<p>Rodney blinked as he considered the calculations. “We don’t really have a measurement of electricity yet. We need something to describe the unit of work done along an axis of force and direction. So, if we had a unit of power to use, equivalent to one joule per second--”</p>
<p>“In English, McKay.”</p>
<p>“I told you, we don’t have a measurement of power.” Rodney nearly tugged at his hair in frustration. Really, there was no way Sheppard could possibly understand, despite his previous reference to Volta’s work. Had that been just yesterday afternoon?</p>
<p>“You’re going to be a famous inventor someday. Let’s call the unit of power a McKay. How many McKays will the lightning bolt generate?”</p>
<p>Torn between preening and the pressure of doing rapid calculations on the fly, Rodney pulled a number out of his hat. “Let’s say 1.21 gigaMcKays. Give or take a couple of hundred McKays.”</p>
<p>Sheppard whistled.</p>
<p>It shouldn’t have felt so good to have proof of Sheppard’s admiration, but it did.</p>
<p>As if the clouds heard Sheppard and responded, the skies opened, and it began to rain.</p>
<p>By the time they reached the gate, the snow had turned to slush and fog rose from the ground, draping the woods in a ghostly shroud. The scene had turned from winter wonderland into <em>The Legend of Sleepy Hollow</em>, and Rodney felt a chill that had nothing to do with the bone-penetrating dampness. When he questioned bringing the sleigh right up to the gate, Sheppard shrugged.</p>
<p>“If we laid our plan right, our villain will expect to find the sleigh here. Your sister <em>will</em> come through for us, right?”</p>
<p>Rodney nodded. “Oh yes. She’ll be suitably annoyed that I’ve shirked my duties as host to ‘go play in the woods with some artifact he’s found’ and lay the bait for whoever is behind this to come after us. I trust Jeannie completely.”</p>
<p>He should. He was trusting her with <em>everything</em>.</p>
<p>“Good. Hopefully, the murderer assume you found the gate and will bank on your ability to repair it and come investigate. We’ll catch whoever it is, and your family will be safe from here on out.” Sheppard threw a blanket over the mare and began tossing bags out of the sleigh.</p>
<p>It was a good plan, even if Rodney was loathe to admit it. “Where’s Ronon?”</p>
<p>In the gathering gloom, with the rain pelting down and the fog rising from the ground, it was hard to make out anything. But Sheppard scanned the surrounding forest with one hand shielding his eyes, and then pointed. “There.”</p>
<p>Rodney still couldn’t see a thing until they were almost on top of it. In the time they were gone, Ronon had constructed a lean-to built from tree limbs and thatched with pine branches. It was virtually invisible from the outside, and inside, remarkably dry. He said nothing as the two men crawled inside, dragging their bags behind them, but he accepted the food Rodney passed over and took such a huge bite of a chicken leg, Rodney feared he might choke.</p>
<p>The three men lay side by side under a blanket in the shelter, peering out at the driving rain while eating their dinner.</p>
<p>“How did he make this shelter so fast?” Rodney whispered in Sheppard’s ear.</p>
<p>“Practice,” Ronon said, amusement rumbling in his voice.</p>
<p>And so they waited. Waited through the rain. Through the deepening darkness. The chill of the ground was offset by the heat radiating off Sheppard beside him, and Rodney couldn’t think of when he’d been more uncomfortable and yet having a better time. Sheppard’s body next to his seemed right and perfect and something Rodney wanted to experience every day. He didn’t want to think about tomorrow. Not tonight.</p>
<p>Minutes passed. Replete with food and unexpectedly warm, the patter of rain on the thatched roof of their shelter surprisingly soothing, drowsiness threatened to overtake him.</p>
<p>A flash of lightning sent keen awareness through Rodney, but the delay to the tumble of thunder had him sagging again. Too far away. Cold disappointment coursed through his veins. What if this was all for naught?</p>
<p>More time passed. Rodney’s eyelids grew heavy, and it was a struggle to stay awake. But when the bright flare of lightning lit up the woods, he was so startled to see a cloaked figure standing in the clearing near the console, he clutched Sheppard’s arm.</p>
<p>Sheppard peeled Rodney’s fingers back from his arm one by one. Ronon was nowhere to be seen. Somehow he’d left the shelter without Rodney seeing him go.</p>
<p>At the next flicker of lightning, the figure in the clearing was gone. Had it been a figment of Rodney’s imagination?</p>
<p>The crash of thunder rode the lightning flash much closer now. Despite the rain, there seemed to be a charge of energy all around them.</p>
<p>“Soon,” Rodney whispered. “Soon. I can feel it coming in the air tonight. Can’t you?”</p>
<p>Sheppard just nudged him. Whether in agreement or to shut him up, Rodney didn’t know.</p>
<p>Lightning cracked again, with thunder crashing on top of it. A bolt streaked out of the sky and struck the wire tower surrounding the console. Energy rippled along the metal construct and into the unit below. Sparks flew off the cage like fireflies into the wet night.</p>
<p>“Now,” Rodney said, shoving his bags out of the shelter in front of him. “I have no idea how much time we have.”</p>
<p>Sheppard rolled out of the lean-to with enviable grace and held out a hand to Rodney. He clasped Sheppard’s hand with a sense of rightness, and allowed the other man to help him to his feet. Together they made a dash for the console. Rodney reached for the first symbol for Atlantis and swore when the panel was too hot to touch.</p>
<p>“I won’t be going there.”</p>
<p>The voice spoke with a weird resonance, and the figure who stepped out of the shadows had glowing eyes beneath the hooded cloak.</p>
<p>“I thank you for repairing the Chappa'ai. For your service to Hathor, I shall let you live.” Sora threw back the cloak and stood in the rain, her eyes glowing like molten gold. “I will return with my armies, and take over this pathetic world, but you will be my first ones, my slaves.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Sheppard drawled. “I’m guessing you’re not Mme Sora, then?”</p>
<p>The woman known as Sora lifted her chin. “The host no longer exists, except as a voice that sometimes screams in the back of my mind. I enjoyed killing her mentor, the man she called Kolya. If you stand in my way, I will not hesitate to kill you, either, Major Sheppard.” Her voice dropped into a sultry purr. “Though I would rather play with you first.”</p>
<p>“Sorry,” Sheppard said, though he was clearly not. “Not interested.”</p>
<p>“Then get out of my way.” Sora—or was it Hathor?—raised her hand. In the center of her palm she held some sort of device that lit up with a red glow. Rodney thought he could perceive waves radiating out from her hand toward Sheppard. He grunted as though something had struck him, and his knees began to buckle.</p>
<p>“John!” Rodney cried, grabbing Sheppard by the arm as he crumpled to the ground.</p>
<p>“Get out of here, McKay,” Sheppard ground through his teeth, struggling to remain upright.</p>
<p>“No!” Rodney pulled a .45 caliber Adams from his coat pocket and leveled it at the console. “Let him go or I will destroy the dialing device!”</p>
<p>Hathor/Sora narrowed her eyes into golden slits as she lowered her hand. “You <em>dare</em> to defy me? Do you know who you are dealing with? I am Hathor. I am the Goddess from whom all others were created. I have been gracious, but now you will feel my full wrath. I do not <em>need</em> you, you miserable worm of a man.”</p>
<p>She raised her hand again, this time her palm aimed at Rodney. He took a quick shot at her, but the air went sparkly around her and she laughed as the bullet fell harmlessly to the ground. What the hell? A personal shield?</p>
<p>The effects of the palm device struck him in the forehead, and he too, sank to his knees. Dear Lord, she was melting his brains out and he <em>needed</em> his brains but there was nothing he could do to stop her…</p>
<p>And then she jerked and gasped. The pain to Rodney’s head stopped, and he watched in a daze as she staggered around, clawing at her back. When she turned in a circle, Rodney saw the shaft of a knife buried to the hilt in her back. Blood foaming out of her mouth, she collapsed in a heap in the slush. There was a suggestion of movement near her body, and Rodney squinted to make out what it might be.</p>
<p>His skin crawled as he saw some sort of large worm with a fringe around its neck and terrible pinchers for mandibles flopping toward him. The parasite exploded as a bolt of energy blasted it. Mud leapt into the air as several more bolts followed.</p>
<p>Ronon came out from behind a tree and fired one more shot for good measure.</p>
<p>Rodney raced for the console, dragging his baggage.</p>
<p>“Come on,” he shouted as he punched in the symbols. “I don’t know how much time we have! Ronon, we can’t leave this body behind.”</p>
<p>“On it,” Ronon said, and he hefted Sora’s body over one shoulder like she was a sack of meal.</p>
<p>“Sheppard,” Rodney said as he punched the final sequence in. “My plan is to go to Atlantis, find Jennifer, and send her back through the gate with instructions to bury the gate on this end and uncover it one year from today. If I’m still alive, I might come back through with the discoveries I’ve made. But I’m not coming back with her.”</p>
<p>The sequence locked, and the rush of “water” tumbled out and back into place again. Ronon looked over his shoulder at Rodney and Sheppard, nodded, and plunged through the shimmering wall.</p>
<p>Rodney hurried over to the gate. With a mighty heave, he tossed his bags through the gate and watched them disappear.</p>
<p>“Kavanaugh is determined to cause trouble for me. And that will spill over on you. But you can stick it out here if you like.”</p>
<p>Sheppard slung his bag over his shoulder and joined Rodney in front of the gate. “What about your family here?”</p>
<p>Rodney shrugged. “Jeannie will explain my disappearance. I’ve left detailed instructions with her. I’ve gone to America. In the meantime, she’ll make sure nothing comes through the gate on this end—alive, anyway. Like I said, I trust her.”</p>
<p>Sheppard nodded slowly. “Well, let’s not stand around all day then. Hurry up, McKay, before the gate shuts down on us.”</p>
<p>“You’re coming too?” Hope flared and then died as Rodney glanced at Sheppard. “Ah, I get it. You want to see if the city is the one in your vision, and you’ll be returning with Miss Keller.”</p>
<p>“Did I say that?” Sheppard scratched the side of his jaw. “I know it’s the city in my vision, and I think it’s going to take more than a few minutes to explore it. A year sounds like a better estimate. Besides, I already told Lady Weir to sell my horse.”</p>
<p>The words of poet Browning suddenly came to Rodney’s mind.</p>
<p>
  <em>Beneath the verist ash, there hides a spark of soul</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Which, quickened by love’s breath may yet</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Pervade the whole o’ the gray</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>And, free again, be fire.</em>
</p>
<p>The look Sheppard shot Rodney was like an extended hand. Rodney glanced the rippling blue wall within the gate and back at Sheppard again. He nodded toward Sheppard’s bag. “Are you sure you have everything you need?”</p>
<p>Sheppard met his gaze with a steady look and a quirky smile. “I have everything I want right here.”</p>
<p>Together, they went through the gate.</p>
<p>~the end</p>
<p> </p>
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